"It won't be true."
"Surely I may speak to you as your friend, Lucy. You needn't be so abrupt with me. Will you listen to me, Lucy?"
"Of course I will listen;—only nothing that anybody on earth could say about that would make me believe a word of it."
"Very well! Now just let me go on. If it were to be so—"
"Oh-h, Lady Fawn!"
"Don't be foolish, Lucy. I will say what I've got to say. If—if— Let me see. Where was I? I mean just this. You had better remain here till things are a little more settled. Even if it be only a rumour,—and I'm sure I don't believe it's anything more,—you had better hear about it with us,—with friends round you, than with a perfect stranger like Lady Linlithgow. If anything were to go wrong there, you wouldn't know where to go for comfort. If anything were wrong with you here, you could come to me as though I were your mother.—Couldn't you, now?"
"Indeed, indeed I could! And I will;—I always will. Lady Fawn, I love you and the dear darling girls better than all the world—except Mr. Greystock. If anything like that were to happen, I think I should creep here and ask to die in your house. But it won't. And just now it will be better that I should go away."
It was found at last that Lucy must have her way, and letters were written both to Mrs. Greystock and to Frank, requesting that the suggested overtures might at once be made to Lady Linlithgow. Lucy, in her letter to her lover, was more than ordinarily cheerful and jocose. She had a good deal to say about Lady Linlithgow that was really droll, and not a word to say indicative of the slightest fear in the direction of Lady Eustace. She spoke of poor Lizzie, and declared her conviction that that marriage never could come off now. "You mustn't be angry when I say that I can't break my heart for them, for I never did think that they were very much in love. As for Lord Fawn, of course he is my—ENEMY!" And she wrote the word in big letters. "And as for Lizzie,—she's your cousin, and all that. And she's ever so pretty, and all that. And she's as rich as Crœsus, and all that. But I don't think she'll break her own heart. I would break mine; only—only—only— You will understand the rest. If it should come to pass, I wonder whether 'the duchess' would ever let a poor creature see a friend of hers in Bruton Street?" Frank had once called Lady Linlithgow the duchess, after a certain popular picture in a certain popular book, and Lucy never forgot anything that Frank had said.
It did come to pass. Mrs. Greystock at once corresponded with Lady Linlithgow, and Lady Linlithgow, who was at Ramsgate for her autumn vacation, requested that Lucy Morris might be brought to see her at her house in London on the 2nd of October. Lady Linlithgow's autumn holiday always ended on the last day of September. On the 2nd of October Lady Fawn herself took Lucy up to Bruton Street, and Lady Linlithgow appeared. "Miss Morris," said Lady Fawn, "thinks it right that you should be told that she's engaged to be married." "Who to?" demanded the countess. Lucy was as red as fire, although she had especially made up her mind that she would not blush when the communication was made. "I don't know that she wishes me to mention the gentleman's name, just at present; but I can assure you that he is all that he ought to be." "I hate mysteries," said the countess. "If Lady Linlithgow—" began Lucy. "Oh, it's nothing to me," continued the old woman. "It won't come off for six months, I suppose?" Lucy gave a mute assurance that there would be no such difficulty as that. "And he can't come here, Miss Morris." To this Lucy said nothing. Perhaps she might win over even the countess, and if not, she must bear her six months of prolonged exclusion from the light of day. And so the matter was settled. Lucy was to be taken back to Richmond, and to come again on the following Monday. "I don't like this parting at all, Lucy," Lady Fawn said on her way home.
"It is better so, Lady Fawn."