Becky Sharp shows herself as a mistress of all she surveys, whereas Lizzie succeeds only with the men whom she targets. Lady Fawn and her daughters were not so easily taken in. On the other hand, Thackeray shows Becky to have an easier field—the "Vanity Fair" of foolish mortals, trusting and benighted souls, easily duped. Thackeray, like Dickens, entertains us much like Becky entertained Miss Crawley, by mockery; and their mockery spared very few. Trollope, on the other hand, may have had more respect for people in general; his portraits, though they did include "warts and all," were less caricatures than realistic renderings.
Lizzie stars in one of Trollope's memorable scenes, "The Diamonds are Seen in Public." Her fiancé Lord Fawn, troubled about the diamonds, has written a letter forbidding her to keep the diamonds, saying they belong rightfully to her late husband's family. They arrive separately at a party given by Lady Glencora, not having communicated in the three weeks since Lord Fawn's letter. She wears the diamonds, which "seemed to outshine all the jewellery in the room. … The only doubt might be whether paste diamonds might not better suit her character." Lord Fawn confronts her as soon as he sees her, but no ears hear the inconsequential words they speak to each other. Lady Eustace joins Lord Fawn in a quadrille, dances with no one else, and very soon asks him to get her carriage for her. Taking her seat, she tells him, "You had better come to me soon." And thus does Lady Eustace savor her triumph of displaying the diamonds at Lady Glencora's house.
This may have been the high point for Lizzie. Her one goal in life was to keep the diamonds, and all else was sacrificed to this goal. It is not so much that she has an overall strategy; rather, she constantly improvises from one point to the next, keeping (supposedly) the diamonds locked up in an iron box.
Of course the diamonds are at risk—not only from Mr. Camperdown, the Eustace family lawyer who is as determined to recover the diamonds for the family as Lizzie is to keep them, but also from thieves in the night. When Lizzie goes to her late husband's ancestral castle in Scotland, she surrounds herself with unscrupulous friends, runs through her potential suitors, and loses her diamonds. On the first attempt at the diamonds, the thieves get an empty iron box, while Lady Eustace retains the jewels "in her own keeping." Not being one to blurt out the truth at the first opportunity, however, Lizzie does not tell the police that she still has the diamonds, and she digs herself deeper and deeper into her deception until it carries the name of perjury.
As Lizzie sins, so is she punished, not by the law, but by the irony of fate, receiving a proposal of marriage by Mr. Joseph Emilius, described in words which we now find difficult to forgive: "a nasty, greasy, lying, squinting Jew preacher." This follows his assertions that he is the greatest preacher of the day and can move masses. Lizzie knows he is grossly exaggerating his assets, but "A man, to be a man in her eyes, should be able to swear that all his geese are swans." When he demands an answer to his proposal of marriage, Lizzie answers him in kind, making a speech that matches his in length, protesting that after losing "the dearest husband that a woman had ever worshipped," she had once thought of matrimony with a man of high rank for the sake of her child. But he had proved unworthy of her, she discloses with a scornful expression as she declares that she can no longer be willing to consider another marriage. "Upon hearing this, Mr. Emilius bowed low, and before the street-door was closed against him had begun to calculate how much a journey to Scotland would cost him."
All these events did not go unnoticed by the gods on Mount Olympus—in this case, the Pallisers and their friends at Matching Priory. The Pallisers were less involved in this story than in any of the other five novels in the Palliser series. Lady Glencora had intervened a bit, and she had not been wise in choosing sides (a tendency which was to recur in her favoritism of the villain Lopez in The Prime Minister), and she had called on Lady Eustace to offer her support. But none of the other gods and goddesses challenged her. "It was understood that Lady Glencora was not to be snubbed, though she was very much given to snubbing others. She had attained this position for herself by a mixture of beauty, rank, wealth, and courage;—but the courage had, of the four, been her greatest mainstay." None at Matching were more entertained, however, than the greatest god of all, the old Duke of Omnium. The old duke was in his last days, and "It was admitted by them all that the robbery had been a godsend in the way of amusing the duke."
The Duke was not alone in his enjoyment of the adventures of Lizzie Eustace. The little vixen has provided pleasant diversion for many readers; she continues to amuse.