Ever since encountering the fearsome Mrs. Hurtle in The Way We Live Now, I have had a special affection for Trollope’s “bad girl” characters. Of course I haven’t read everything by Trollope, but I find it hard to imagine anyone worse than Lizzie Eustace, the perverse anti-heroine whose self-serving schemes drive the plot of The Eustace Diamonds.
At the time of the novel, Lizzie has just been widowed by the late Sir Florian Eustace. Sir Florian left her with a large estate, a young son, and a bevy of in-laws who hate her. He has also left her, or so Lizzie avers, an extremely valuable diamond necklace. The Eustace clan believe the necklace to be an heirloom and therefor not something that Sir Florian could leave outside the family. The family lawyer, Mr. Camperdown, is charged with getting the diamonds back from Lizzie and takes his task very much to heart.
As the battle about the diamonds rages on between Lizzie and Mr. Camperdown, Lizzie feels the need to marry again to secure for herself a champion in her troubles. She becomes engaged to the very boring Lord Fawn, but he breaks things off on first hearing that she is in possession of the questionable diamonds. Seeing no possibility of protection from Lord Fawn, Lizzie turns to her cousin Frank Greystock. Frank seems to generally like her (and, more remarkable still, seems to actually believe her), but is engaged already to the poor governess of Lady Fawn’s daughters.
The third possibility for Lizzie’s champion is Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, an adventurer of uncertain ties who appeals to Lizzie’s desire to align herself with a heroic “corsair.” Lord George is an unpredictable character who seems to run hot and cold in his regard for Lizzie. His terse remonstrances made me think that if there were a movie adaptation, he should be played by Cary Grant. Eventually, Lizzie’s penchant for subterfuge seem to frighten Lord George away, leaving Lizzie to finally accept a proposal from a rather slimy Jewish minister (somewhat reminiscent of Mr. Slope of Barchester Towers).
While on a trip with Lord George and some other disreputable companions, the safe box in which Lizzie stores her diamonds is stolen from her hotel room. Having suspected that they may not be safe in the box, Lizzie has hidden the diamonds under her pillow, but allows the authorities and all her friends (as well as Mr. Camperdown) to believe that they have actually been stolen. Eventually she confesses her lie to Lord George, who is regarded by many as the probable thief. The false robbery is followed a short time later by a real one, in which Lizzie’s desk is searched and the diamonds are actually taken. Lizzie continues to perjure herself by not reporting the diamonds as among the items stolen.
Strangely, the robberies seem to increase the public regard for Lizzie, causing people to see her as a victim. Even Lady Glencora Palliser takes her up as a cause. Finally, of course, the truth is known, and Lizzie is made to testify to her lies by Major Mackintosh of the police force. So ends her career in London society as she runs off to Scotland and her marriage to the minister.
While clearly the book is mostly about Lizzie, Frank Greystock is a very significant character. Repeating a frequent theme in Trollope, Frank has to choose between love (for the governess Lucy Morris) and money (in the form of the vixen Lizzie). While he eventually does the right thing by honoring his engagement to Lucy, he spends a great deal of the novel in the role of Lizzie’s confidant/champion/lover. It seems that men in Trollope are not given to strict constancy in their affections. Even Johnny Eames of The Small House at Allington, who is certainly a model of persistence, is not quite perfect in his consistency. Trollope interrupts his story with an entire chapter dedicated to elucidating his feelings about the not-quite-heroic behavior of his hero, Frank. He appeals to the reality of good and evil coexisting in human beings:
Our own friends around us are not always merry and wise, nor, alas, always honest and true. They are often cross and foolish, and sometimes treacherous and false. They are so, and we are angry. Then we forgive them, not without a consciousness of imperfection on our own part. And we know, or at least believe, that though they be sometimes treacherous and false, there is a balance of good. We cannot have heroes to dine with us. There are none. And were these heroes to be had, we should not like them. But neither are our friends villains, whose every aspiration is for evil, and whose every moment is a struggle for some achievement worthy of the devil. The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel because they are so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in life because they are so good.
I know that critics of Trollope abhor his direct addresses to his readers and his commentary upon the story at hand, but I find many of these asides delightful in that they offer a glimpse of the aesthetic ideals of the novelist. Trollope asserts that he does not want to give us an idealized King Arthur, but rather “a true picture of life as it is … show[ing] men what they are and how they might rise, not indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another, on the ladder.” And so does Frank Greystock rise, marrying Lucy Morris in the end.
Not surprisingly, The Eustace Diamonds has the charm and the realism that we expect from Trollope. It does not, however, succeed very well if we regard it as an early example of “crime fiction.” To begin with, the novel altogether lacks a heroic detective. The various police characters are rather non-descript and get very little stage time. Major Mackintosh makes a very brief appearance and is certainly no Sherlock Holmes, nor even a Mr. Bucket. Furthermore, we are never in much doubt as to the disposition of the diamonds or the identities of the guilty parties. In one of his infamous asides in Barchester Towers, Trollope tells us that he dislikes keeping secrets from his readers and this tendency means that he was doomed to failure in the mystery genre. Still, while not a great mystery, this novel is great fun and I enjoyed it more than either of the two previous Palliser novels.