The Eustace Diamonds | Page 5

was necessary to him that he should be made to know by some
signal from her how it was going with her feelings. As he spoke of his
danger, there came a gurgling little trill of wailing from her throat, a
soft, almost musical, sound of woe, which seemed to add an
unaccustomed eloquence to his words. When he spoke of his own hope
the sound was somewhat, changed, but it was still continued. When he
alluded to the disposition of his fortune, she was at his feet. "Not that,"
she said, "not that!" He lifted her, and with his arm round her waist he
tried to tell her what it would be his duty to do for her. She escaped
from his arm and would not listen to him. But--but--! When he began to
talk of love again, she stood with her forehead bowed against his
bosom. Of course the engagement was then a thing accomplished.
But still the cup might slip from her lips. Her father was now dead but
ten months, and what answer could she make when the common
pressing petition for an early marriage was poured into her ear? This
was in July, and it would never do that he should be left, unmarried, to
the rigour of another winter. She looked into his face and knew that she
had cause for fear. Oh, heavens! if all these golden hopes should fall to
the ground, and she should come to be known only as the girl who had
been engaged to the late Sir Florian! But he himself pressed the
marriage on the same ground. "They tell me," he said, "that I had better
get a little south by the beginning of October. I won't go alone. You
know what I mean--eh, Lizzie?" Of course she married him in
September.
They spent a honeymoon of six weeks at a place he had in Scotland,
and the first blow came upon him as they passed through London, back
from Scotland, on their way to Italy. Messrs. Harter & Benjamin sent in
their little bill, which amounted to something over £400, and other little

bills were sent in. Sir Florian was a man by whom all such bills would
certainly be paid, but by whom they would not be paid without his
understanding much and conceiving more as to their cause and nature.
How much he really did understand she was never quite aware; but she
did know that he detected her in a positive falsehood. She might
certainly have managed the matter better than she did; and had she
admitted everything there might probably have been but few words
about it. She did not, however, understand the nature of the note she
had signed, and thought that simply new bills would be presented by
the jewellers to her husband. She gave a false account of the transaction,
and the lie was detected. I do not know that she cared very much. As
she was utterly devoid of true tenderness, so also was she devoid of
conscience. They went abroad, however; and by the time the winter
was half over in Naples, he knew what his wife was; and before the end
of the spring he was dead.
She had so far played her game well, and had won her stakes. What
regrets, what remorse she suffered when she knew that he was going
from her, and then knew that he was gone, who can say? As man is
never strong enough to take unmixed delight in good, so may we
presume also that he cannot be quite so weak as to find perfect
satisfaction in evil. There must have been qualms as she looked at his
dying face, soured with the disappointment she had brought upon him,
and listened to the harsh querulous voice that was no longer eager in
the expressions of love. There must have been some pang when she
reflected that the cruel wrong which she had inflicted on him had
probably hurried him to his grave. As a widow, In the first solemnity of
her widowhood, she was wretched and would see no one. Then she
returned to England and shut herself up in a small house at Brighton.
Lady Linlithgow offered to go to her, but she begged that she might be
left to herself. For a few short months the awe arising from the rapidity
with which it had all occurred did afflict her. Twelve months since she
had hardly known the man who was to be her husband. Now she was a
widow--a widow very richly endowed--and she bore beneath her bosom
the fruit of her husband's love.
But, even in these early days, friends and enemies did not hesitate to

say that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself;