Frank Greystock stayed till the following Monday at Portray, but could not be induced to hunt on the Saturday, on which day the other sporting men and women went to the meet. He could not, he said, trust to that traitor MacFarlane, and he feared that his friend Mr. Nappie would not give him another mount on the grey horse. Lizzie offered him one of her two darlings, an offer which he, of course, refused; and Lord George also proposed to put him up. But Frank averred that he had ridden his hunt for that season, and would not jeopardise the laurels he had gained. “And moreover,” said he, “I should not dare to meet Mr. Nappie in the field.” So he remained at the castle and took a walk with Mr. Mealyus. Mr. Mealyus asked a good many questions about Portray, and exhibited the warmest sympathy with Lizzie’s widowed condition. He called her a “sweet, gay, unsophisticated, light-hearted young thing.”
“She is very young,” replied her cousin. “Yes,” he continued, in answer to further questions; “Portray is certainly very nice. I don’t know what the income is. Well, yes. I should think it is over a thousand. Eight! No, I never heard it said that it was as much as that.” When Mr. Mealyus put it down in his mind as five, he was not void of acuteness, as very little information had been given to him.
There was a joke throughout the castle that Mr. Mealyus had fallen in love with Miss Macnulty. They had been a great deal together on those hunting days; and Miss Macnulty was unusually enthusiastic in praise of his manner and conversation. To her, also, had been addressed questions as to Portray and its income, all of which she had answered to the best of her ability; not intending to betray any secret, for she had no secret to betray; but giving ordinary information on that commonest of all subjects, our friends’ incomes. Then there had risen a question whether there was a vacancy for such promotion to Miss Macnulty. Mrs. Carbuncle had certainly heard that there was a Mrs. Emilius. Lucinda was sure that there was not, an assurance which might have been derived from a certain eagerness in the reverend gentleman’s demeanour to herself on a former occasion. To Lizzie, who at present was very good-natured, the idea of Miss Macnulty having a lover, whether he were a married man or not, was very delightful. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Miss Macnulty. “I don’t suppose Mr. Emilius had any idea of the kind.” Upon the whole, however, Miss Macnulty liked it.
On the Saturday nothing especial happened. Mr. Nappie was out on his gray horse, and condescended to a little conversation with Lord George. He wouldn’t have minded, he said, if Mr. Greystock had come forward; but he did think Mr. Greystock hadn’t come forward as he ought to have done. Lord George professed that he had observed the same thing; but then, as he whispered into Mr. Nappie’s ear, Mr. Greystock was particularly known as a bashful man. “He didn’t ride my ‘orse anyway bashful,” said Mr. Nappie — all of which was told at dinner in the evening amidst a great deal of laughter. There had been nothing special in the way of sport, and Lizzie’s enthusiasm for hunting, though still high, had gone down a few degrees below fever heat. Lord George had again coached her; but there had been no great need for coaching, no losing of her breath, no cutting down of Lucinda, no river, no big wall — nothing, in short, very fast. They had been much in a big wood; but ‘Lizzie, in giving an account of the day to her cousin, had acknowledged that she had not quite understood what they were doing at any time.
“It was a-blowing of horns and a-galloping up and down all the day,” she said; “and then Morgan got cross again and scolded all the people. But there was one nice paling, and Dandy flew over it beautifully. Two men tumbled down, and one of them was a good deal hurt. It was very jolly — but not at all like Wednesday.”
Nor had it been like Wednesday to Lucinda Roanoke, who did not fall into the water, and who did accept Sir Griffin when he again proposed to her in Sarkie Wood. A great deal had been said to Lucinda on the Thursday and the Friday by Mrs. Carbuncle — which had not been taken at all in good part by Lucinda. On those days Lucinda kept as much as she could out of Sir Griffin’s way, and almost snapped at the baronet when he spoke to her. Sir Griffin swore to himself that he wasn’t going to be treated that way. He’d have her, by George! There are men in whose love a good deal of hatred is mixed — who love as the huntsman loves the fox, towards the killing of which he intends to use all his energies and intellects. Mrs. Carbuncle, who did not quite understand the sort of persistency by which a Sir Griffin can be possessed, feared greatly that Lucinda was about to lose her prize, and spoke out accordingly.
“Will you, then, just have the kindness to tell me what it is you propose to yourself?” asked Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I don’t propose anything.”
“And where will you go when your money’s done?”
“Just where I am going now,” said Lucinda. By which it may be feared that she indicated a place to which she should not on such an occasion have made an allusion.
“You don’t like anybody else?” suggested Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I don’t like anybody or anything,” said Lucinda.
“Yes, you do — you like horses to ride, and dresses to wear.”
“No, I don’t. I like hunting because, perhaps, some day I may break my neck. It’s no use your looking like that, Aunt Jane. I know what it all means. If I could break my neck it would be the best thing for me.”
“You’ll break my heart, Lucinda.”
“Mine’s broken long ago.”
“If you’ll accept Sir Griffin, and just get a home round yourself, you’ll find that everything will be happy. It all comes from the dreadful uncertainty. Do you think I have suffered nothing? Carbuncle is always threatening that he’ll go back to New York; and as for Lord George, he treats me that way I’m sometimes afraid to show my face.”
“Why should you care for Lord George?”
“It’s all very well to say, why should I care for him. I don’t care for him, only one doesn’t want to quarrel with one’s friends. Carbuncle says he owes him money.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Lucinda.
“And he says Carbuncle owes him money.”
“I do believe that,” said Lucinda.
“Between it all, I don’t know which way to be turning. And now, when there’s this great opening for you, you won’t know your own mind.”
“I know my mind well enough.”
“I tell you you’ll never have such another chance. Good looks isn’t everything. You’ve never a word to say to anybody; and when a man does come near you, you’re as savage and cross as a bear.”
“Go on, Aunt Jane.”
“What with your hatings and dislikings, one would suppose you didn’t think God Almighty made men at all.”
“He made some of ’em very bad,” said Lucinda. “As for some others, they’re only half made. What can Sir Griffin do, do you suppose?”
“He’s a gentleman.”
“Then if I were a man, I should wish not to be a gentleman; that’s all. I’d a deal sooner marry a man like that huntsman, who has something to do and knows how to do it.” Again she said, “Don’t worry any more, Aunt Jane. It doesn’t do any good. It seems to me that to make myself Sir Griffin’s wife would be impossible; but I’m sure your talking won’t do it.” Then her aunt left her, and, having met Lord George, at his bidding went and made civil speeches to Lizzie Eustace.
That was on the Friday afternoon. On the Saturday afternoon Sir Griffin, biding his time, found himself, in a ride with Lucinda, sufficiently far from other horsemen for his purpose. He wasn’t going to stand any more nonsense. He was entitled to an answer, and he knew that he was entitled, by his rank and position, to a favourable answer. Here was a girl who, as far as he knew, was without a shilling, of whose birth and parentage nobody knew anything, who had nothing but her beauty to recommend her — nothing but that and a certain capacity for carrying herself in the world as he thought ladies should carry themselves; and she was to give herself airs with him, and expect him to propose to her half a dozen times! By George! he had a very good mind to go away and let her find out her mistake. And he would have done so — only that he was a man who always liked to have all that he wanted. It was intolerable to him that anybody should refuse him anything. “Miss Roanoke,” he said; and then he paused.
“Sir Griffin,” said Lucinda, bowing her head.
“Perhaps you will condescend to remember what I had the honour of saying to you as we rode into Kilmarnock last Wednesday.”
“I had just been dragged out of a river, Sir Griffin, and I don’t think any girl ought to be asked to remember what was said to her in that condition.”
“If I say it again now, will you remember?”
“I cannot promise, Sir Griffin.”
“Will you give me an answer?”
“That must depend.”
“Come, I will have an answer. When a man tells a lady that he admires her, and asks her to be his wife, he has a right to an answer. Don’t you think that in such circumstances a man has a right to expect an answer?”
Lucinda hesitated for a moment, and he was beginning again to remonstrate impatiently, when she altered her tone, and replied to him seriously: “In such circumstances a gentleman has a right to expect an answer.”
“Then give me one. I admire you above all the world, and I ask you to be my wife. I’m quite in earnest.”
“I know that you are in earnest, Sir Griffin. I would do neither you nor myself the wrong of supposing that it could be otherwise.”
“Very well then. Will you accept the offer that I make you?”
Again she paused. “You have a right to an answer, of course; but it may be so difficult to give it. It seems to me that you have hardly realised how serious a question it is.”
“Haven’t I though? By George, it is serious.”
“Will it not be better for you to think it over again?”
He now hesitated for a moment. Perhaps it might be better. Should she take him at his word there would be no going back from it. But Lord George knew that he had proposed before. Lord George had learned this from Mrs. Carbuncle, and had shown that he knew it. And then, too, he had made up his mind about it. He wanted her, and he meant to have her. “It requires no more thinking with me, Lucinda. I’m not a man who does things without thinking; and when I have thought I don’t want to think again. There’s my hand — will you have it?”
“I will,” said Lucinda, putting her hand into his. He no sooner felt her assurance than his mind misgave him that he had been precipitate, that he had been rash, and that she had taken advantage of him. After all, how many things are there in the world more precious than a handsome girl. And she had never told him that she loved him.
“I suppose you love me?” he asked.
“H’sh; here they all are.” The hand was withdrawn, but not before both Mrs. Carbuncle and Lady Eustace had seen it.
Mrs. Carbuncle, in her great anxiety, bided her time, keeping close to her niece. Perhaps she felt that if the two were engaged, it might be well to keep the lovers separated for a while, lest they should quarrel before the engagement should have been so confirmed by the authority of friends as to be beyond the power of easy annihilation. Lucinda rode quite demurely with the crowd. Sir Griffin remained near her, but without speaking. Lizzie whispered to Lord George that there had been a proposal. Mrs. Carbuncle sat in stately dignity on her horse, as though there was nothing which at that moment especially engaged her attention. An hour almost had passed before she was able to ask the important question, “Well — what have you said to him?”
“Oh; just what you would have me.”
“You have accepted him?”
“I suppose I was obliged. At any rate I did. You shall know one thing, Aunt Jane, at any rate, and I hope it will make you comfortable. I hate a good many people; but of all the people in the world I hate Sir Griffin Tewett the worst.”
“Nonsense, Lucinda.”
“It shall be nonsense, if you please; but it’s true. I shall have to lie to him, but there shall be no lying to you, however much you may wish it. I hate him!”
This was very grim, but Mrs Carbuncle quite understood that to persons situated in great difficulty things might be grim. A certain amount of grimness must be endured. And she knew, too, that Lucinda was not a girl to be driven without showing something of an intractable spirit in harness. Mrs. Carbuncle had undertaken the driving of Lucinda, and had been not altogether unsuccessful. The thing so necessary to be done was now effected. Her niece was engaged to a man with a title, to a man reported to have a fortune, to a man of family, and a man of the world. Now that the engagement was made, the girl could not go back from it, and it was for Mrs. Carbuncle to see that neither should Sir Griffin go back. Her first steps must be taken at once. The engagement should be made known to all the party, and should be recognised by some word spoken between herself and the lover. The word between herself and the lover must be the first thing. She herself, personally, was not very fond of Sir Griffin; but on such an occasion as this she could smile and endure the bear. Sir Griffin was a bear — but so also was Lucinda. “The rabbits and hares All go in pairs; And likewise the bears In couples agree.” Mrs. Carbuncle consoled herself with the song, and assured herself that it would all come right. No doubt the she bears were not as civil to the he-bears as the turtle doves are to each other. It was perhaps her misfortune that her niece was not a turtle dove; but, such as she was, the best had been done for her.
“Dear Sir Griffin,” she said on the first available opportunity, not caring much for the crowd, and almost desirous that her very words should be overheard, “my darling girl has made me so happy by what she has told me.”
“She hasn’t lost any time,” said Sir Griffin.
“Of course she would lose no time. She is the same to me as a daughter. I have no child of my own, and she is everything to me. May I tell you that you are the luckiest man in Europe?”
“It isn’t every girl that would suit me, Mrs. Carbuncle.”
“I am sure of that. I have noticed how particular you are. I won’t say a word of Lucinda’s beauty; men are better judges of that than women; but for high chivalrous spirit, for true principle and nobility, and what I call downright worth, I don’t think you will easily find her superior. And she is as true as steel.”
“And about as hard, I was beginning to think.”
“A girl like that, Sir Griffin, does not give herself away easily. You will not like her the less for that now that you are the possessor. She is very young, and has known my wish that she should not engage herself to any one quite yet. But as it is, I cannot regret anything.”
“I dare say not,” said Sir Griffin.
That the man was a bear was a matter of course, and bears probably do not themselves know how bearish they are. Sir Griffin, no doubt, was unaware of the extent of his own rudeness. And his rudeness mattered but little to Mrs. Carbuncle, so long as he acknowledged the engagement. She had not expected a lover’s raptures from the one more than from the other. And was not there enough in the engagement to satisfy her? She allowed, therefore, no cloud to cross her brow as she rode up alongside of Lord George. “Sir Griffin has proposed, and she has accepted him,” she said in a whisper. She was not now desirous that any one should hear her but he to whom she spoke.
“Of course she has,” said Lord George.
“I don’t know about that, George. Sometimes I thought she would, and sometimes that she wouldn’t. You have never understood Lucinda.”
“I hope Griff will understand her, that’s all. And now that the thing is settled, you’ll not trouble me about it any more. Their woes be on their own head. If they come to blows Lucinda will thrash him, I don’t doubt. But while it’s simply a matter of temper and words, she won’t find Tewett so easygoing as he looks.”
“I believe they’ll do very well together.”
“Perhaps they will. There’s no saying who may do well together. You and Carbuncle get on au marvel. When is it to be?”
“Of course nothing is settled yet.”
“Don’t be too hard about settlements, or, maybe, he’ll find a way of wriggling out. When a girl without a shilling asks very much, the world supports a man for breaking his engagement. Let her pretend to be indifferent about it; that will be the way to keep him firm.”
“What is his income, George?”
“I haven’t an idea. There never was a closer man about money. I believe he must have the bulk of the Tewett property some day. He can’t spend above a couple of thousand now.”
“He’s not in debt, is he?”
“He owes me a little money — twelve hundred or so — and I mean to have it. I suppose he is in debt, but not much, I think. He makes stupid bets, and the devil won’t break him of it.”
“Lucinda has two or three thousand pounds, you know.”
“That’s a flea-bite. Let her keep it. You’re in for it now, and you’d better say nothing about money. He has a decent solicitor, and let him arrange about the settlements. And look here, Jane; get it done as soon as you can.”
“You’ll help me?”
“If you don’t bother me, I will.”
On their way home Mrs. Carbuncle was able to tell Lady Eustace. “You know what has occurred?”
“Oh, dear, yes,” said Lizzie laughing.
“Has Lucinda told you?”
“Do you think I’ve got no eyes? Of course it was going to be. I knew that from the very moment Sir Griffin reached Portray. I am so glad that Portray has been useful.”
“Oh, so useful, dear Lady Eustace! Not but what it must have come off anywhere, for there never was a man so much in love as Sir Griffin. The difficulty has been with Lucinda.”
“She likes him, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Mrs. Carbuncle with energy.
“Not that girls ever really care about men now. They’ve got to be married, and they make the best of it. She’s very handsome, and I suppose he’s pretty well off.”
“He will be very rich indeed. And they say he’s such an excellent young man when you know him.”
“I dare say most young men are excellent when you come to know them. What does Lord George say?”
“He’s in raptures. He is very much attached to Lucinda, you know.” And so that affair was managed. They hadn’t been home a quarter of an hour before Frank Greystock was told. He asked Mrs. Carbuncle about the sport, and then she whispered to him, “An engagement has been made.”
“Sir Griffin?” suggested Frank. Mrs. Carbuncle smiled and nodded her head. It was well that everybody should know it.
“So, Miss, you’ve took him,” said the joint Abigail of the Carbuncle establishment that evening to the younger of her two mistresses. Mrs. Carbuncle had resolved that the thing should be quite public.
“Just remember this,” replied Lucinda, “I don’t want to have a word said to me on the subject.”
“Only just to wish you joy, miss.”
Lucinda turned round with a flash of anger at the girl. “I don’t want your wishing. That’ll do. I can manage by myself. I won’t have you come near me if you can’t hold your tongue when you’re told.”
“I can hold my tongue as well as anybody,” said the Abigail with a toss of her head.
This happened after the party had separated for the evening. At dinner Sir Griffin had, of course, given Lucinda his arm; but so he had always done since they had been at Portray. Lucinda hardly opened her mouth at table, and had retreated to bed with a headache when the men, who on that day lingered a few minutes after the ladies, went into the drawing-room. This Sir Griffin felt to be almost an affront, as there was a certain process of farewell for the night which he had anticipated. If she was going to treat him like that, he would cut up rough, and she should know it.
“Well, Griff, so it’s all settled,” said Lord George in the smoking-room. Frank Greystock was there, and Sir Griffin did not like it.
“What do you mean by settled? I don’t know that anything is settled.”
“I thought it was. Weren’t you told so?” And Lord George turned to Greystock.
“I thought I heard a hint,” said Frank.
“I’m —— if I ever knew such people in my life,” said Sir Griffin. “They don’t seem to have an idea that a man’s own affairs may be private.”
“Such an affair as that never is private,” said Lord George. “The women take care of that. You don’t suppose they’re going to run down their game, and let nobody know it.”
“If they take me for game —”
“Of course you’re game. Every man’s game. Only some men are such bad game that they ain’t worth following. Take it easy, Griff; you’re caught.”
“No, I ain’t.”
“And enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that she’s about the handsomest girl out. As for me, I’d sooner have the widow. I beg your pardon, Mr. Greystock.” Frank merely bowed. “Simply, I mean, because she rides about two stone lighter. It’ll cost you something to mount Lady Tewett.”
“I don’t mean that she shall hunt,” said Sir Griffin. It will be seen, therefore, that the baronet made no real attempt to deny his engagement.
On the following day, which was Sunday, Sir Griffin, having ascertained that Miss Roanoke did not intend to go to church, stayed at home also. Mr. Emilius had been engaged to preach at the nearest Episcopal place of worship, and the remainder of the party all went to hear him. Lizzie was very particular about her Bible and Prayer-book, and Miss Macnulty wore a brighter ribbon on her bonnet than she had ever been known to carry before. Lucinda, when she had heard of the arrangement, had protested to her aunt that she would not go down-stairs till they had all returned; but Mrs. Carbuncle, fearing the anger of Sir Griffin, doubting whether in his anger he might not escape them altogether, said a word or two which even Lucinda found to be rational. “As you have accepted him, you shouldn’t avoid him, my dear. That is only making things worse for the future. And then it’s cowardly, is it not?” No word that could have been spoken was more likely to be efficacious. At any rate, she would not be cowardly.
As soon then as the wheels of the carriage were no longer heard grating upon the road, Lucinda, who had been very careful in her dress, so careful as to avoid all appearance of care, with slow majestic step descended to a drawing-room which they were accustomed to use on mornings. It was probable that Sir Griffin was smoking somewhere about the grounds, but it could not be her duty to go after him out of doors. She would remain there, and, if he chose, he might come to her. There could be no ground of complaint on his side if she allowed herself to be found in one of the ordinary sitting-rooms of the house. In about half an hour he sauntered upon the terrace, and flattened his nose against the window. She bowed and smiled to him, hating herself for smiling. It was perhaps the first time that she had endeavoured to put on a pleasant face wherewithal to greet him. He said nothing then, but passed round the house, threw away the end of his cigar, and entered the room. Whatever happened, she would not be a coward. The thing had to be done. Seeing that she had accepted him on the previous day, had not run away in the night or taken poison, and had come down to undergo the interview, she would undergo it at least with courage. What did it matter, even though he should embrace her? It was her lot to undergo misery, and as she had not chosen to take poison, the misery must be endured. She rose as he entered and gave him her hand. She had thought what she would do, and was collected and dignified. He had not, and was very awkward.
“So you haven’t gone to church, Sir Griffin, as you ought,” she said, with another smile.
“Come, I’ve gone as much as you.”
“But I had a headache. You stayed away to smoke cigars.”
“I stayed to see you, my girl.” A lover may call his ladylove his girl, and do so very prettily. He may so use the word that she will like it, and be grateful in her heart for the sweetness of the sound. But Sir Griffin did not do it nicely. “I’ve got ever so much to say to you.”
“I won’t flatter you by saying that I stayed to hear it.”
“But you did; didn’t you now?” She shook her head; but there was something almost of playfulness in her manner of doing it. “Ah, but I know you did. And why shouldn’t you speak out, now that we are to be man and wife? I like a girl to speak out. I suppose if I want to be with you, you want as much to be with me; eh?”
“I don’t see that that follows.”
“By ——, if it doesn’t I’ll be off.”
“You must please yourself about that, Sir Griffin.”
“Come; do you love me? You have never said you loved me.” Luckily perhaps for her, he thought that the best assurance of love was a kiss. She did not revolt, or attempt to struggle with him; but the hot blood flew over her entire face, and her lips were very cold to his, and she almost trembled in his grasp. Sir Griffin was not a man who could ever have been the adored of many women, but the instincts of his kind were strong enough within him to make him feel that she did not return his embrace with passion. He had found her to be very beautiful; but it seemed to him that she had never been so little beautiful as when thus pressed close to his bosom. “Come,” he said, still holding her, “you’ll give me a kiss?”
“I did do it,” she said.
“No; nothing like it. Oh, if you won’t, you know ——.”
On a sudden she made up her mind, and absolutely did kiss him. She would sooner have leaped at the blackest, darkest, dirtiest river in the county. “There,” she said, “that will do,” gently extricating herself from his arms. “Some girls are different, I know; but you must take me as I am, Sir Griffin; that is, if you do take me.”
“Why can’t you drop the Sir?”
“Oh yes; I can do that.”
“And you do love me?” There was a pause, while she tried to swallow the lie. “Come; I’m not going to marry any girl who is ashamed to say that she loves me. I like a little flesh and blood. You do love me?”
“Yes,” she said. The lie was told; and for the moment he had to be satisfied. But in his heart he didn’t believe her. It was all very well for her to say that she wasn’t like other girls. Why shouldn’t she be like other girls? It might, no doubt, suit her to be made Lady Tewett; but he wouldn’t make her Lady Tewett if she gave herself airs with him. She should lie on his breast and swear that she loved him beyond all the world, or else she should never be Lady Tewett. Different from other girls indeed! She should know that he was different from other men. Then he asked her to come and take a walk about the grounds. To that she made no objection. She would get her hat and be with him in a minute.
But she was absent more than ten minutes. When she was alone she stood before her glass looking at herself, and then she burst into tears. Never before had she been thus polluted. The embrace had disgusted her. It made her odious to herself. And if this, the beginning of it, was so bad, how was she to drink the cup to the bitter dregs? Other girls, she knew, were fond of their lovers — some so fond of them that all moments of absence were moments, if not of pain, at any rate of regret. To her, as she stood there ready to tear herself because of the vileness of her own condition, it now seemed as though no such love as that were possible to her. For the sake of this man who was to be her husband, she hated all men. Was not everything around her base, and mean, and sordid? She had understood thoroughly the quick divulgings of Mrs. Carbuncle’s tidings, the working of her aunt’s anxious mind. The man, now that he had been caught, was not to be allowed to escape. But how great would be the boon if he would escape. How should she escape? And yet she knew that she meant to go on and bear it all. Perhaps by study and due practice she might become — as were some others — a beast of prey and nothing more. The feeling that had made these few minutes so inexpressibly loathsome to her might, perhaps, be driven from her heart. She washed the tears from her eyes with savage energy, and descended to her lover with a veil fastened closely under her hat. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” she said.
“Women always do,” he replied laughing. “It gives them importance.”
“It is not so with me, I can assure you. I will tell you the truth. I was agitated, and I cried.”
“Oh, ay; I dare say.” He rather liked the idea of having reduced the haughty Lucinda to tears. “But you needn’t have been ashamed of my seeing it. As it is, I can see nothing. You must take that off presently.”
“Not now, Griffin.” Oh, what a name it was! It seemed to blister her tongue as she used it without the usual prefix.
“I never saw you tied up in that way before. You don’t do it out hunting. I’ve seen you when the snow has been driving in your face, and you didn’t mind it — not so much as I did.”
“You can’t be surprised that I should be agitated now.”
“But you’re happy, ain’t you?”
“Yes,” she said. The lie once told must of course be continued.
“Upon my word, I don’t quite understand you,” said Sir Griffin. “Look here, Lucinda; if you want to back out of it you can, you know.”
“If you ask me again, I will.” This was said with the old savage voice, and it at once reduced Sir Griffin to thraldom. To be rejected now would be the death of him. And should there come a quarrel, he was sure that it would seem to be that he had been rejected.
“I suppose it’s all right,” he said; “only when a man is only thinking how he can make you happy, he doesn’t like to find nothing but crying.” After this there was but little more said between them before they returned to the castle.
On the Monday Frank took his departure. Everybody at the castle had liked him except Sir Griffin, who, when he had gone, remarked to Lucinda that he was an insufferable legal prig, and one of those chaps who think themselves somebody because they are in Parliament. Lucinda had liked Frank, and said so very boldly. “I see what it is,” replied Sir Griffin; “you always like the people I don’t.”
When he was going, Lizzie left her hand in his for a moment, and gave one look up into his eyes. “When is Lucy to be made blessed?” she asked.
“I don’t know that Lucy will ever be made blessed,” he replied, “but I am sure I hope she will.” Not a word more was said, and he returned to London.
After that Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda remained at Portray Castle till after Christmas, greatly overstaying the original time fixed for their visit. Lord George and Sir Griffin went and returned, and went again and returned again. There was much hunting and a great many love passages, which need not be recorded here. More than once during these six or seven weeks there arose a quarrel, bitter, loud, and pronounced, between Sir Griffin and Lucinda; but Lord George and Mrs. Carbuncle between them managed to throw oil upon the waters, and when Christmas came the engagement was still an engagement. The absolute suggestion that it should be broken, and abandoned, and thrown to the winds, always came from Lucinda; and Sir Griffin, when he found that Lucinda was in earnest, would again be moved by his old desires, and would determine that he would have the thing he wanted. Once he behaved with such coarse brutality that nothing but an abject apology would serve the turn. He made the abject apology, and after that became conscious that his wings were clipped, and that he must do as he was bidden. Lord George took him away, and brought him back again, and blew him up; and at last, under pressure from Mrs. Carbuncle, made him consent to the fixing of a day. The marriage was to take place during the first week in April. When the party moved from Portray he was to go up to London and see his lawyer. Settlements were to be arranged, and something was to be fixed as to future residence.
In the midst of all this Lucinda was passive as regarded the making of the arrangements, but very troublesome to those around her as to her immediate mode of life. Even to Lady Eustace she was curt and uncivil. To her aunt she was at times ferocious. She told Lord George more than once to his face that he was hurrying her to perdition.
“What the d —— is it you want?” Lord George said to her.
“Not to be married to this man.”
“But you have accepted him. I didn’t ask you to take him. You don’t want to go into a workhouse, I suppose?”
Then she rode so hard that all the Ayrshire lairds were startled out of their propriety, and there was a general fear that she would meet some terrible accident. And Lizzie, instigated by jealousy, learned to ride as hard, and as they rode against each other every day, there was a turmoil in the hunt. Morgan, scratching his head, declared that he had known “drunken rampaging men,” but had never seen ladies so wicked. Lizzie did come down rather badly at one wall, and Lucinda got herself jammed against a gate-post. But when Christmas was come and gone, and Portray Castle had been left empty, no very bad accident had occurred.
A great friendship had sprung up between Mrs. Carbuncle and Lizzie, so that both had become very communicative. Whether both or either had been candid may, perhaps, be doubted. Mrs. Carbuncle had been quite confidential in discussing with her friend the dangerous varieties of Lucinda’s humours, and the dreadful aversion which she still seemed to entertain for Sir Griffin. But then these humours and this aversion were so visible, that they could not well be concealed; and what can be the use of confidential communications if things are kept back which the confidante would see even if they were not told?
“She would be just like that, whoever the man was,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I suppose so,” said Lizzie, wondering at such a phenomenon in female nature. But with this fact, understood between them to be a fact — namely, that Lucinda would be sure to hate any man whom she might accept — they both agreed that the marriage had better go on.
“She must take a husband some day, you know,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Of course,” said Lizzie.
“With her good looks, it would be out of the question that she shouldn’t be married.”
“Quite out of the question,” repeated Lizzie.
“And I really don’t see how she’s to do better. It’s her nature, you know. I have had enough of it, I can tell you. And at the pension, near Paris, they couldn’t break her in at all. Nobody could ever break her in. You see it in the way she rides.”
“I suppose Sir Griffin must do it,” said Lizzie, laughing.
“Well — that, or the other thing, you know.” But there was no doubt about this — whoever might break or be broken, the marriage must go on. “If you don’t persevere with one like her, Lady Eustace, nothing can be done.” Lizzie quite concurred. What did it matter to her who should break, or who be broken, if she could only sail her own little bark without dashing it on the rocks? Rocks there were. She didn’t quite know what to make of Lord George, who certainly was a Corsair — who had said some very pretty things to her, quite à la Corsair. But in the mean time, from certain rumours that she heard, she believed that Frank had given up, or at least was intending to give up, the little chit who was living with Lady Linlithgow. There had been something of a quarrel — so, at least, she had heard through Miss Macnulty, with whom Lady Linlithgow still occasionally corresponded in spite of their former breaches. From Frank, Lizzie heard repeatedly but Frank in his letters never mentioned the name of Lucy Morris. Now, if there should be a division between Frank and Lucy, then, she thought, Frank would return to her. And if so, for a permanent holding rock of protection in the world, her cousin Frank would be at any rate safer than the Corsair.
Lizzie and Mrs. Carbuncle had quite come to understand each other comfortably about money. It suited Mrs. Carbuncle very well to remain at Portray. It was no longer necessary that she should carry Lucinda about in search of game to be run down. The one head of game needed had been run down, such as it was — not, indeed, a very noble stag; but the stag had been accepted; and a home for herself and her niece, which should have about it a sufficient air of fashion to satisfy public opinion — out of London — better still, in Scotland, belonging to a person with a title, enjoying the appurtenances of wealth, and one to which Lord George and Sir Griffin could have access — was very desirable. But it was out of the question that Lady Eustace should bear all the expense. Mrs. Carbuncle undertook to find the stables, and did pay for that rick of hay and for the cartload of forage which had made Lizzie’s heart quake as she saw it dragged up the hill towards her own granaries. It is very comfortable when all these things are clearly understood. Early in January they were all to go back to London. Then for a while — up to the period of Lucinda’s marriage — Lizzie was to be Mrs. Carbuncle’s guest at the small house in May Fair, but Lizzie was to keep the carriage. There came at last to be some little attempt, perhaps, at a hard bargain at the hand of each lady, in which Mrs. Carbuncle, as the elder, probably got the advantage. There was a question about the liveries in London. The footman there must appertain to Mrs. Carbuncle, whereas the coachman would as necessarily be one of Lizzie’s retainers. Mrs. Carbuncle assented at last to finding the double livery — but, like a prudent woman, arranged to get her quid pro quo. “You can add something, you know, to the present you’ll have to give Lucinda. Lucinda shall choose something up to forty pounds.”
“We’ll say thirty,” said Lizzie, who was beginning to know the value of money.
“Split the difference,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, with a pleasant little burst of laughter — and the difference was split. That the very neat and even dandified appearance of the groom who rode out hunting with them should be provided at the expense of Mrs. Carbuncle was quite understood; but it was equally well understood that Lizzie was to provide the horse on which he rode, on every third day. It adds greatly to the comfort of friends living together when these things are accurately settled.
Mr. Emilius remained longer than had been anticipated, and did not go till Lord George and Sir Griffin took their departure. It was observed that he never spoke of his wife; and yet Mrs. Carbuncle was almost sure that she had heard of such a lady. He had made himself very agreeable, and was, either by art or nature, a courteous man, one who paid compliments to ladies. It was true, however, that he sometimes startled his hearers, by things which might have been considered to border on coarseness if they had not been said by a clergyman. Lizzie had an idea that he intended to marry Miss Macnulty. And Miss Macnulty certainly received his attentions with pleasure. In these circumstances his prolonged stay at the castle was not questioned; but when towards the end of November Lord George and Sir Griffin took their departure, he was obliged to return to his flock.
On the great subject of the diamonds Lizzie had spoken her mind freely to Mrs. Carbuncle early in the days of their friendship — immediately, that is, after the bargaining had been completed. “Ten thousand pounds!” ejaculated Mrs. Carbuncle, opening wide her eyes. Lizzie nodded her head thrice, in token of reiterated assurance. “Do you mean that you really know their value?” The ladies at this time were closeted together, and were discussing many things in the closest confidence.
“They were valued for me by jewellers.”
“Ten thousand pounds! And Sir Florian gave them to you?”
“Put them round my neck, and told me they were to be mine, always.”
“Generous man!”
“Ah, if you had but known him!” said Lizzie, just touching her eye with her handkerchief.
“I dare say. And now the people claim them. I’m not a bit surprised at that, my dear. I should have thought a man couldn’t give away so much as that, not just as one makes a present that costs forty or fifty pounds.” Mrs. Carbuncle could not resist the opportunity of showing that she did not think so very much of that coming thirty-five-pound “gift” for which the bargain had been made.
“That’s what they say. And they say ever so many other things besides. They mean to prove that it’s an — heirloom.”
“Perhaps it is.”
“But it isn’t. My cousin Frank, who knows more about law than any other man in London, says that they can’t make a necklace an heirloom. If it was a brooch or a ring, it would be different. I don’t quite understand it, but it is so.”
“It’s a pity Sir Florian didn’t say something about it in his will,” suggested Mrs. Carbuncle.
“But he did; at least, not just about the necklace.” Then Lady Eustace explained the nature of her late husband’s will, as far as it regarded chattels to be found in the castle of Portray at the time of his death; and added the fiction, which had now become common to her, as to the necklace having been given to her in Scotland.
“I shouldn’t let them have it,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I don’t mean,” said Lizzie.
“I should sell them,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“But why?”
“Because there are so many accidents. A woman should be very rich indeed before she allows herself to walk about with ten thousand pounds upon her shoulders. Suppose somebody broke into the house and stole them. And if they were sold, my dear, so that some got to Paris, and others to St. Petersburg, and others to New York, they’d have to give it up then.” Before the discussion was over Lizzie tripped upstairs and brought the necklace down and put it on Mrs. Carbuncle’s neck. “I shouldn’t like to have such property in my house, my dear,” continued Mrs. Carbuncle. “Of course diamonds are very nice. Nothing is so nice. And if a person had a proper place to keep them, and all that ——”
“I’ve a very strong iron case,” said Lizzie.
“But they should be at the bank, or at the jeweller’s, or somewhere quite — quite safe. People might steal the case and all. If I were you I should sell them.” It was explained to Mrs. Carbuncle on that occasion that Lizzie had brought them down with her in the train from London, and that she intended to take them back in the same way. “There’s nothing the thieves would find easier than to steal them on the way,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
It was some days after this that there came down to her by post some terribly frightful documents, which were the first results, as far as she was concerned, of the filing of a bill in Chancery; which hostile proceeding was, in truth, effected by the unaided energy of Mr. Camperdown, although Mr. Camperdown put himself forward simply as an instrument used by the trustees of the Eustace property. Within eight days she was to enter an appearance, or go through some preliminary ceremony toward showing why she should not surrender her diamonds to the Lord Chancellor, or to one of those satraps of his, the Vice-Chancellors, or to some other terrible myrmidon. Mr. Camperdown in his letter explained that the service of this document upon her in Scotland would amount to nothing, even were he to send it down by a messenger; but that no doubt she would send it to her attorney, who would see the expediency of avoiding exposure by accepting the service. Of all which explanation Lizzie did not understand one word. Messrs. Camperdown’s letter and the document which it contained did frighten her considerably, although the matter had been discussed so often that she had accustomed herself to declare that no such bugbear as that should have any influence on her. She had asked Frank whether, in the event of such missiles reaching her, she might send them to him. He had told her that they should be at once placed in the hands of her attorney; and consequently she now sent them to Messrs. Mowbray & Mopus, with a very short note from herself. “Lady Eustace presents her compliments to Messrs. Mowbray & Mopus, and encloses some papers she has received about her diamonds. They are her own diamonds, given to her by her late husband. Please do what is proper, but Mr. Camperdown ought to be made to pay all the expenses.”
She had, no doubt, allowed herself to hope that no further steps would be taken in the matter; and the very name of the Vice-Chancellor did for a few hours chill the blood at her heart. In those few hours she almost longed to throw the necklace into the sea, feeling sure that, if the diamonds were absolutely lost, there must be altogether an end of the matter, But, by degrees, her courage returned to her, as she remembered that her cousin had told her that, as far as he could see, the necklace was legally her own. Her cousin had, of course, been deceived by the lies which she had repeated to him; but lies which had been efficacious with him might be efficacious with others. Who could prove that Sir Florian had not taken the diamonds to Scotland, and given them to her there, in that very house which was now her own?
She told Mrs. Carbuncle of the missiles which had been hurled at her from the London courts of law, and Mrs. Carbuncle evidently thought that the diamonds were as good as gone. “Then I suppose you can’t sell them,” said she.
“Yes, I could; I could sell them tomorrow. What is to hinder me? Suppose I took them to jewellers in Paris?”
“The jewellers would think you had stolen them.”
“I didn’t steal them,” said Lizzie. “They’re my very own. Frank says that nobody can take them away from me. Why shouldn’t a man give his wife a diamond necklace as well as a diamond ring? That’s what I can’t understand. What may he give her so that men sha’n’t come and worry her life out of her in this way? As for an heirloom, anybody who knows anything, knows it can’t be an heirloom. A pot or a pan may be an heirloom; but a diamond necklace cannot be an heirloom. Everybody knows that, that knows anything.”
“I dare say it will all come right,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, who did not in the least believe Lizzie’s law about the pot and pan.
In the first week in January Lord George and Sir Griffin returned to the castle with the view of travelling up to London with the three ladies. This arrangement was partly thrown over by circumstances, as Sir Griffin was pleased to leave Portray two days before the others and to travel by himself. There was a bitter quarrel between Lucinda and her lover, and it was understood afterwards by Lady Eustace that Sir Griffin had had a few words with Lord George; but what those few words were, she never quite knew. There was no open rupture between the two gentlemen, but Sir Griffin showed his displeasure to the ladies, who were more likely to bear patiently his ill-humour in the present circumstances than was Lord George. When a man has shown himself to be so far amenable to feminine authority as to have put himself in the way of matrimony, ladies will bear a great deal from him. There was nothing which Mrs. Carbuncle would not endure from Sir Griffin, just at present; and, on behalf of Mrs. Carbuncle, even Lizzie was long-suffering. It cannot, however, be said that this Petruchio had as yet tamed his own peculiar shrew. Lucinda was as savage as ever, and would snap and snarl, and almost bite. Sir Griffin would snarl too, and say very bearish things. But when it came to the point of actual quarrelling, he would become sullen, and in his sullenness would yield.
“I don’t see why Carruthers should have it all his own way,” he said, one hunting morning, to Lucinda.
“I don’t care twopence who have their way,” said Lucinda, “I mean to have mine; that’s all.”
“I’m not speaking about you. I call it downright interference on his part. And I do think you give way to him. You never do anything that I suggest.”
“You never suggest anything that I like to do,” said Lucinda.
“That’s a pity,” said Sir Griffin, “considering that I shall have to suggest so many things that you will have to do.”
“I don’t know that at all,” said Lucinda.
Mrs. Carbuncle came up during the quarrel, meaning to throw oil upon the waters. “What children you are!” she said laughing. “As if each of you won’t have to do what the other suggests.”
“Mrs. Carbuncle,” began Sir Griffin, “if you will have the great kindness not to endeavour to teach me what my conduct should be now or at any future time, I shall take it as a kindness.”
“Sir Griffin, pray don’t quarrel with Mrs. Carbuncle,” said Lizzie.
“Lady Eustace, if Mrs. Carbuncle interferes with me, I shall quarrel with her. I have borne a great deal more of this kind of thing than I like. I’m not going to be told this and told that because Mrs. Carbuncle happens to be the aunt of the future Lady Tewett — if it should come to that. I’m not going to marry a whole family; and the less I have of this kind of thing the more likely it is that I shall come up to scratch when the time is up.”
Then Lucinda rose and spoke. “Sir Griffin Tewett,” she said, “there is not the slightest necessity that you should ‘come up to scratch.’ I wonder that I have not as yet been able to make you understand that if it will suit your convenience to break off our match, it will not in the least interfere with mine. And let me tell you this, Sir Griffin, that any repetition of your unkindness to my aunt will make me utterly refuse to see you again.”
“Of course you like her better than you do me.”
“A great deal better,” said Lucinda.
“If I stand that I’ll be ——,” said Sir Griffin, leaving the room. And he left the castle, sleeping that night in the inn at Kilmarnock. The day, however, was passed in hunting; and though he said nothing to either of the three ladies, it was understood by them as they returned to Portray that there was to be no quarrel. Lord George and Sir Griffin had discussed the matter, and Lord George took upon himself to say that there was no quarrel. On the morning but one following, there came a note from Sir Griffin to Lucinda just as they were leaving home for their journey up to London, in which Sir Griffin expressed his regret if he had said anything displeasing to Mrs. Carbuncle.
Something as to the jewels had been told to Lord George; and this was quite necessary, as Lord George intended to travel with the ladies from Portray to London. Of course he had heard of the diamonds, as who had not? He had heard too of Lord Fawn, and knew why it was that Lord Fawn had peremptorily refused to carry out his engagement. But, till he was told by Mrs. Carbuncle, he did not know that the diamonds were then kept within the castle, nor did he understand that it would be part of his duty to guard them on their way back to London.
“They are worth ever so much, ain’t they?” he said to Mrs. Carbuncle, when she first gave him the information.
“Ten thousand pounds,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, almost with awe.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Lord George.
“She says that they’ve been valued at that, since she’s had them.”
Lord George owned to himself that such a necklace was worth having, as also, no doubt, were Portray Castle and the income arising from the estate, even though they could be held in possession only for a single life. Hitherto in his very checkered career he had escaped the trammels of matrimony, and among his many modes of life had hardly even suggested to himself the expediency of taking a wife with a fortune, and then settling down for the future, if submissively, still comfortably. To say that he had never looked forward to such a marriage as a possible future arrangement would probably be incorrect. To men such as Lord George it is too easy a result of a career to be altogether banished from the mind. But no attempt had ever yet been made, nor had any special lady ever been so far honoured in his thoughts as to be connected in them with any vague ideas which he might have formed on the subject. But now it did occur to him that Portray Castle was a place in which he could pass two or three months annually without ennui; and that if he were to marry, little Lizzie Eustace would do as well as any other woman with money whom he might chance to meet. He did not say all this to any body, and therefore cannot be accused of vanity. He was the last man in the world to speak on such a subject to any one. And as even Lizzie certainly bestowed upon him many of her smiles, much of her poetry, and some of her confidence, it cannot be said that he was not justified in his views. But then she was such an — “infernal little liar.” Lord George was quite able to discover so much of her.
“She does lie, certainly,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, “but then who doesn’t?”
On the morning of their departure the box with the diamonds was brought down into the hall just as they were about to depart. The tall London footman again brought it down, and deposited it on one of the oak hall-chairs, as though it were a thing so heavy that he could hardly stagger along with it. How Lizzie did hate the man as she watched him, and regret that she had not attempted to carry it down herself. She had been with her diamonds that morning, and had had them out of the box and into it. Few days passed on which she did not handle them and gaze at them. Mrs. Carbuncle had suggested that the box, with all her diamonds in it, might be stolen from her, and as she thought of this her heart almost sank within her. When she had them once again in London she would take some steps to relieve herself from this embarrassment of carrying about with her so great a burden of care. The man, with a vehement show of exertion, deposited the box on a chair, and then groaned aloud. Lizzie knew very well that she could lift the box by her own unaided exertions, and the groan was at any rate unnecessary.
“Supposing somebody were to steal that on the way,” said Lord George to her, not in his pleasantest tone.
“Do not suggest anything so horrible,” said Lizzie, trying to laugh.
“I shouldn’t like it at all,” said Lord George.
“I don’t think it would make me a bit unhappy. You’ve heard about it all. There never was such a persecution. I often say that I should be well pleased to take the bauble and fling it into the ocean waves.”
“I should like to be a mermaid and catch it,” said Lord George.
“And what better would you be? Such things are all vanity and vexation of spirit. I hate the shining thing.” And she hit the box with the whip she held in her hand.
It had been arranged that the party should sleep at Carlisle. It consisted of Lord George, the three ladies, the tall man servant, Lord George’s own man, and the two maids. Miss Macnulty, with the heir and the nurses, were to remain at Portray for yet a while longer. The iron box was again put into the carriage, and was used by Lizzie as a footstool. This might have been very well, had there been no necessity for changing their train. At Troon the porter behaved well, and did not struggle much as he carried it from the carriage on to the platform. But at Kilmarnock, where they met the train from Glasgow, the big footman interfered again, and the scene was performed under the eyes of a crowd of people. It seemed to Lizzie that Lord George almost encouraged the struggling, as though he were in league with the footman to annoy her. But there was no further change between Kilmarnock and Carlisle, and they managed to make themselves very comfortable. Lunch had been provided; for Mrs. Carbuncle was a woman who cared for such things, and Lord George also liked a glass of champagne in the middle of the day. Lizzie professed to be perfectly indifferent on such matters; but nevertheless she enjoyed her lunch, and allowed Lord George to press upon her a second, and perhaps a portion of a third glass of wine. Even Lucinda was roused up from her general state of apathy, and permitted herself to forget Sir Griffin for a while.
During this journey to Carlisle Lizzie Eustace almost made up her mind that Lord George was the very Corsair she had been expecting ever since she had mastered Lord Byron’s great poem. He had a way of doing things and of saying things, of proclaiming himself to be master, and at the same time of making himself thoroughly agreeable to his dependents, and especially to the one dependent whom he most honoured at the time, which exactly suited Lizzie’s ideas of what a man should be. And then he possessed that utter indifference to all conventions and laws which is the great prerogative of Corsairs. He had no reverence for aught divine or human, which is a great thing. The Queen and Parliament, the bench of bishops, and even the police, were to him just so many fungi and parasites, and noxious vapours, and false hypocrites. Such were the names by which he ventured to call these bugbears of the world. It was so delightful to live with a man who himself had a title of his own, but who could speak of dukes and marquises as being quite despicable by reason of their absurd position. And as they became gay and free after their luncheon he expressed almost as much contempt for honesty as for dukes, and showed clearly that he regarded matrimony and marquises to be equally vain and useless. “How dare you say such things in our hearing?” exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I assert that if men and women were really true, no vows would be needed; and if no vows, then no marriage vows. Do you believe such vows are kept?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Carbuncle enthusiastically.
“I don’t,” said Lucinda.
“Nor I,” said the Corsair. “Who can believe that a woman will always love her husband because she swears she will? The oath is false on the face of it.”
“But women must marry,” said Lizzie. The Corsair declared freely that he did not see any such necessity.
And then, though it could hardly be said that this Corsair was a handsome man, still he had fine Corsair eyes, full of expression and determination, eyes that could look love and bloodshed almost at the same time; and then he had those manly properties — power, bigness, and apparent boldness — which belong to a Corsair. To be hurried about the world by such a man, treated sometimes with crushing severity, and at others with the tenderest love, not to be spoken to for one fortnight, and then to be embraced perpetually for another, to be cast every now and then into some abyss of despair by his rashness, and then raised to a pinnacle of human joy by his courage — that, thought Lizzie, would be the kind of life which would suit her poetical temperament. But then, how would it be with her if the Corsair were to take to hurrying about the world without carrying her with him, and were to do so always at her expense? Perhaps he might hurry about the world and take somebody else with him. Medora, if Lizzie remembered rightly, had had no jointure or private fortune. But yet a woman must risk something if the spirit of poetry is to be allowed any play at all! “And now these weary diamonds again,” said Lord George, as the carriage was stopped against the Carlisle platform. “I suppose they must go into your bedroom, Lady Eustace?”
“I wish you’d let the man put the box in yours, just for this night,” said Lizzie.
“No, not if I know it,” said Lord George. And then he explained. Such property would be quite as liable to be stolen when in his custody as it would in hers; but if stolen while in his would entail upon him a grievous vexation which would by no means lessen the effect of her loss. She did not understand him, but finding that he was quite in earnest she directed that the box should be again taken to her own chamber. Lord George suggested that it should be intrusted to the landlord; and for a moment or two Lizzie submitted to the idea. But she stood for that moment thinking of it, and then decided that the box should go to her own room.
“There’s no knowing what that Mr. Camperdown mightn’t do,” she whispered to Lord George. The porter and the tall footman, between them, staggered along under their load, and the iron box was again deposited in the bedroom of the Carlisle inn.
The evening at Carlisle was spent very pleasantly. The ladies agreed that they would not dress — but of course they did so with more or less of care. Lizzie made herself to look very pretty, though the skirt of the gown in which she came down was that which she had worn during the journey. Pointing this out with much triumph, she accused Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda of great treachery, in that they had not adhered to any vestige of their travelling raiment. But the rancour was not vehement, and the evening was passed pleasantly. Lord George was infinitely petted by the three Houris around him, and Lizzie called him a Corsair to his face.
“And you are the Medora,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Oh no. That is your place, certainly,” said Lizzie.
“What a pity Sir Griffin isn’t here,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, “that we might call him the Giaour.” Lucinda shuddered, without any attempt at concealing her shudder. “That’s all very well, Lucinda, but I think Sir Griffin would make a very good Giaour.”
“Pray don’t, aunt. Let one forget it all just for a moment.”
“I wonder what Sir Griffin would say if he was to hear this,” said Lord George.
Late in the evening Lord George strolled out, and of course all the ladies discussed his character in his absence. Mrs. Carbuncle declared that he was the soul of honour. In regard to her own feeling for him, she averred that no woman had ever had a truer friend. Any other sentiment was of course out of the question, for was she not a married woman? Had it not been for that accident Mrs. Carbuncle really thought that she could have given her heart to Lord George. Lucinda declared that she always regarded him as a kind of supplementary father.
“I suppose he is a year or two older than Sir Griffin,” said Lizzie.
“Lady Eustace, why should you make me unhappy?” said Lucinda.
Then Mrs. Carbuncle explained that whereas Sir Griffin was not yet thirty, Lord George was over forty.
“All I can say is, he doesn’t look it,” urged Lady Eustace enthusiastically.
“Those sort of men never do,” said Mrs. Carbuncle. Lord George, when he returned, was greeted with an allusion to angels’ wings, and would have been a good deal spoiled among them were it in the nature of such an article to receive injury. As soon as the clock had struck ten the ladies all went away to their beds.
Lizzie, when she was in her own room, of course found her maid waiting for her. It was necessarily part of the religion of such a woman as Lizzie Eustace that she could not go to bed, or change her clothes, or get up in the morning, without the assistance of her own young woman. She would not like to have it thought that she could stick a pin into her own belongings without such assistance. Nevertheless it was often the case with her that she was anxious to get rid of her girl’s attendance. It had been so on this morning and before dinner, and was so now again. She was secret in her movements, and always had some recess in her boxes and bags and dressing apparatuses to which she did not choose that Miss Patience Crabstick should have access. She was careful about her letters, and very careful about her money. And then as to that iron box in which the diamonds were kept! Patience Crabstick had never yet seen the inside of it. Moreover it may be said, either on Lizzie’s behalf or to her discredit, as the reader may be pleased to take it, that she was quite able to dress herself, to brush her own hair, to take off her own clothes; and that she was not, either by nature or education, an incapable young woman. But that honour and glory demanded it, she would almost as lief have had no Patience Crabstick to pry into her most private matters. All which Crabstick knew, and would often declare her missus to be “of all missuses the most slyest and least come-at-able.” On this present night she was very soon despatched to her own chamber. Lizzie, however, took one careful look at the iron box before the girl was sent away.
Crabstick, on this occasion, had not far to go to seek her own couch. Alongside of Lizzie’s larger chamber there was a small room, a dressing-room with a bed in it, which, for this night, was devoted to Crabstick’s accommodation. Of course she departed from attendance on her mistress by the door which opened from the one room to the other; but this had no sooner been closed than Crabstick descended to complete the amusements of the evening. Lizzie, when she was alone, bolted both the doors on the inside, and then quickly retired to rest. Some short prayer she said, with her knees close to the iron box. Then she put certain articles of property under her pillow, her watch and chain, and the rings from her fingers, and a packet which she had drawn from her travelling-desk, and was soon in bed, thinking that, as she fell away to sleep, she would revolve in her mind that question of the Corsair: would it be good to trust herself and all her belongings to one who might perhaps take her belongings away, but leave herself behind? The subject was not unpleasant, and while she was considering it she fell asleep.
It was, perhaps, about two in the morning when a man, very efficient at the trade which he was then following, knelt outside Lady Eustace’s door, and, with a delicately-made saw, aided probably by some other equally well-finished tools, absolutely cut out that portion of the bedroom door on which the bolt was fastened. He must have known the spot exactly, for he did not doubt a moment as he commenced his work; and yet there was nothing on the exterior of the door to show where the bolt was placed. The bit was cut out without the slightest noise, and then, when the door was opened, was placed just inside upon the floor. The man then with perfectly noiseless step entered the room, knelt again — just where poor Lizzie had knelt as she said her prayers — so that he might the more easily raise the iron box without a struggle, and left the room with it in his arms without disturbing the lovely sleeper. He then descended the stairs, passed into the coffee-room at the bottom of them, and handed the box through an open window to a man who was crouching on the outside in the dark. He then followed the box, pulled down the window, put on a pair of boots which his friend had ready for him; and the two, after lingering a few moments in the shade of the dark wall, retreated with their prize round a corner. The night itself was almost pitch-dark, and very wet. It was as nearly black with darkness as a night can be. So far, the enterprising adventurers had been successful, and we will now leave them in their chosen retreat, engaged on the longer operation of forcing open the iron safe. For it had been arranged between them that the iron safe should be opened then and there. Though the weight to him who had taken it out of Lizzie’s room had not been oppressive, as it had oppressed the tall serving-man, it might still have been an incumbrance to gentlemen intending to travel by railway with as little observation as possible. They were, however, well supplied with tools, and we will leave them at their work.
On the next morning Lizzie was awakened earlier than she had expected, and found not only Patience Crabstick in her bedroom, but also a chambermaid, and the wife of the manager of the hotel. The story was soon told to her. Her room had been broken open, and her treasure was gone. The party had intended to breakfast at their leisure, and proceed to London by a train leaving Carlisle in the middle of the day; but they were soon disturbed from their rest. Lady Eustace had hardly time to get her slippers from her feet, and to wrap herself in her dressing-gown, to get rid of her dishevelled nightcap, and make herself just fit for public view, before the manager of the hotel, and Lord George, and the tall footman, and the boots were in her bedroom. It was too plainly manifest to them all that the diamonds were gone. The superintendent of the Carlisle police was there almost as soon as the others; and following him very quickly came the important gentleman who was at the head of the constabulary of the county.
Lizzie, when she first heard the news, was awe-struck rather than outwardly demonstrative of grief. “There has been a regular plot,” said Lord George. Captain Fitzmaurice, the gallant chief, nodded his head.
“Plot enough,” said the superintendent, who did not mean to confide his thoughts to any man, or to exempt any human being from his suspicion. The manager of the hotel was very angry, and at first did not restrain his anger. Did not everybody know that if articles of value were brought into a hotel they should be handed over to the safe-keeping of the manager? He almost seemed to think that Lizzie had stolen her own box of diamonds.
“My dear fellow,” said Lord George, “nobody is saying a word against you or your house.”
“No, my lord; but ——”
“Lady Eustace is not blaming you, and do not you blame anybody else,” said Lord George. “Let the police do what is right.”
At last the men retreated, and Lizzie was left with Patience and Mrs. Carbuncle. But even then she did not give way to her grief, but sat upon the bed awe-struck and mute. “Perhaps I had better get dressed,” she said at last.
“I feared how it might be,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, holding Lizzie’s hand affectionately.
“Yes; you said so.”
“The prize was so great.”
“I was always a-telling my lady ——” began Crabstick.
“Hold your tongue!” said Lizzie angrily. “I suppose the police will do the best they can, Mrs. Carbuncle?”
“Oh yes; and so will Lord George.”
“I think I’ll lie down again for a little while,” said Lizzie. “I feel so sick I hardly know what to do. If I were to lie down for a little I should be better.” With much difficulty she got them to leave her. Then, before she again undressed herself, she bolted the door that still had a bolt, and turned the lock in the other. Having done this, she took out from under her pillow the little parcel which had been in her desk, and, untying it, perceived that her dear diamond necklace was perfect, and quite safe.
The enterprising adventurers had, indeed, stolen the iron case, but they had stolen nothing else. The reader must not suppose that because Lizzie had preserved her jewels, she was therefore a consenting party to the abstraction of the box. The theft had been a genuine theft, planned with great skill, carried out with much ingenuity, one in the perpetration of which money had been spent, a theft which for a while baffled the police of England, and which was supposed to be very creditable to those who had been engaged in it. But the box, and nothing but the box, had fallen into the hands of the thieves.
Lizzie’s silence when the abstraction of the box was made known to her, her silence as to the fact that the necklace was at that moment within the grasp of her own fingers, was not at first the effect of deliberate fraud. She was ashamed to tell them that she brought the box empty from Portray, having the diamonds in her own keeping because she had feared that the box might be stolen. And then it occurred to her, quick as thought could flash, that it might be well that Mr. Camperdown should be made to believe that they had been stolen. And so she kept her secret. The reflections of the next half-hour told her how very great would now be her difficulties. But, as she had not disclosed the truth at first, she could hardly disclose it now.
When we left Lady Eustace alone in her bedroom at the Carlisle hotel after the discovery of the robbery, she had very many cares upon her mind. The necklace was, indeed, safe under her pillow in the bed; but when all the people were around her — her own friends, and the police, and they who were concerned with the inn — she had not told them that it was so, but had allowed them to leave her with the belief that the diamonds had gone with the box. Even at this moment, as she knew well, steps were being taken to discover the thieves, and to make public the circumstances of the robbery. Already, no doubt, the fact that her chamber had been entered in the night, and her jewel-box withdrawn, was known to the London police officers. In such circumstances how could she now tell the truth? But it might be that already had the thieves been taken. In that case would not the truth be known, even though she should not tell it? Then she thought for a while that she would get rid of the diamonds altogether, so that no one should know aught of them. If she could only think of a place fit for such purpose, she would so hide them that no human ingenuity could discover them. Let the thieves say what they might, her word would, in such case, be better than that of the thieves. She would declare that the jewels had been in the box when the box was taken. The thieves would swear that the box had been empty. She would appeal to the absence of the diamonds, and the thieves — who would be known as thieves — would be supposed, even by their own friends and associates, to have disposed of the diamonds before they had been taken. There would be a mystery in all this, and a cunning cleverness, the idea of which had in itself a certain charm for Lizzie Eustace. She would have all the world at a loss. Mr. Camperdown could do nothing further to harass her; and would have been, so far, overcome. She would be saved from the feeling of public defeat in the affair of the necklace, which would be very dreadful to her. Lord Fawn might probably be again at her feet. And in all the fuss and rumour which such an affair would make in London, there would be nothing of which she need be ashamed. She liked the idea, and she had grown to be very sick of the necklace.
But what should she do with it? It was, at this moment, between her fingers beneath the pillow. If she were minded, and she thought she was so minded, to get rid of it altogether, the sea would be the place. Could she make up her mind absolutely to destroy so large a property, it would be best for her to have recourse to “her own broad waves,” as she called them even to herself. It was within the “friendly depths of her own rock-girt ocean” that she should find a grave for her great trouble. But now her back was to the sea, and she could hardly insist on returning to Portray without exciting a suspicion that might be fatal to her.
And then might it not be possible to get altogether quit of the diamonds and yet to retain the power of future possession? She knew that she was running into debt, and that money would, some day, be much needed. Her acquaintance with Mr. Benjamin, the jeweller, was a fact often present to her mind. She might not be able to get ten thousand pounds from Mr. Benjamin; but if she could get eight, or six, or even five, how pleasant would it be! If she could put away the diamonds for three or four years, if she could so hide them that no human eyes could see them till she should again produce them to the light, surely, after so long an interval, they might be made available! But where should be found such hiding-place? She understood well how great was the peril while the necklace was in her own immediate keeping. Any accident might discover it, and if the slightest suspicion were aroused, the police would come upon her with violence and discover it. But surely there must be some such hiding-place, if only she could think of it! Then her mind reverted to all the stories she had ever heard of mysterious villainies. There must be some way of accomplishing this thing, if she could only bring her mind to work upon it exclusively. A hole dug deep into the ground; would not that be the place? But then, where should the hole be dug? In what spot should she trust the earth? If anywhere, it must be at Portray. But now she was going from Portray to London. It seemed to her to be certain that she could dig no hole in London that would be secret to herself. Nor could she trust herself, during the hour or two that remained to her, to find such a hole in Carlisle.
What she wanted was a friend; some one that she could trust. But she had no such friend. She could not dare to give the jewels up to Lord George. So tempted, would not any Corsair appropriate the treasure? And if, as might be possible, she were mistaken about him and he was no Corsair, then would he betray her to the police. She thought of all her dearest friends, Frank Greystock, Mrs. Carbuncle, Lucinda, Miss Macnulty, even of Patience Crabstick, but there was no friend whom she could trust. Whatever she did she must do alone! She began to fear that the load of thought required would be more than she could bear. One thing, however, was certain to her: she could not now venture to tell them all that the necklace was in her possession, and that the stolen box had been empty.
Thinking of all this, she went to sleep, still holding the packet tight between her fingers, and in this position was awakened at about ten by a knock at the door from her friend Mrs. Carbuncle. Lizzie jumped out of bed, and admitted her friend, admitting also Patience Crabstick. “You had better get up now, dear,” said Mrs. Carbuncle. “We are all going to breakfast.” Lizzie declared herself to be so fluttered that she must have her breakfast up-stairs. No one was to wait for her. Crabstick would go down and fetch for her a cup of tea, and just a morsel of something to eat.
“You can’t be surprised that I shouldn’t be quite myself,” said Lizzie.
Mrs. Carbuncle’s surprise did not run at all in that direction. Both Mrs. Carbuncle and Lord George had been astonished to find how well she bore her loss. Lord George gave her credit for real bravery. Mrs. Carbuncle — suggested, in a whisper, that perhaps she regarded the theft as an easy way out of a lawsuit.
“I suppose you know, George, they would have got it from her.” Then Lord George whistled, and, in another whisper, declared that, if the little adventure had all been arranged by Lady Eustace herself with the view of getting the better of Mr. Camperdown, his respect for that lady would be very greatly raised.
“If,” said Lord George, “it turns out that she has had a couple of bravos in her pay, like an old Italian marquis, I shall think very highly of her indeed.” This had occurred before Mrs. Carbuncle came up to Lizzie’s room; but neither of them for a moment suspected that the necklace was still within the hotel.
The box had been found, and a portion of the fragments were brought into the room while the party were still at breakfast. Lizzie was not in the room, but the news was at once taken up to her by Crabstick, together with a pheasant’s wing and some buttered toast. In a recess beneath an archway running under the railroad, not distant from the hotel above a hundred and fifty yards, the iron box had been found. It had been forced open, so said the sergeant of police, with tools of the finest steel, peculiarly made for such purpose. The sergeant of police was quite sure that the thing had been done by London men who were at the very top of their trade. It was manifest that nothing had been spared. Every motion of the party must have been known to them, and probably one of the adventurers had travelled in the same train with them. And the very doors of the bedroom in the hotel had been measured by the man who had cut out the bolt. The sergeant of police was almost lost in admiration; but the superintendent of police, whom Lord George saw more than once, was discreet and silent. To the superintendent of police it was by no means sure that Lord George himself might not be fond of diamonds. Of a suspicion flying so delightfully high as this, he breathed no word to any one; but simply suggested that he should like to retain the companionship of one of the party. If Lady Eustace could dispense with the services of the tall footman, the tall footman might be found useful at Carlisle. It was arranged, therefore, that the tall footman should remain; and the tall footman did remain, though not with his own consent. The whole party, including Lady Eustace herself and Patience Crabstick, were called upon to give their evidence to the Carlisle magistrates before they could proceed to London. This Lizzie did, having the necklace at that moment locked up in her desk at the inn. The diamonds were supposed to be worth ten thousand pounds. There was to be a lawsuit about them. She did not for a moment doubt that they were her property. She had been very careful about the diamonds because of the lawsuit. Fearing that Mr. Camperdown might wrest them from her possession, she had caused the iron box to be made. She had last seen the diamonds on the evening before her departure from Portray. She had then herself locked them up, and she now produced the key. The lock was still so far uninjured that the key would turn it. That was her evidence. Crabstick, with a good deal of reticence, supported her mistress. She had seen the diamonds, no doubt, but had not seen them often. She had seen them down at Portray, but not for ever so long. Crabstick had very little to say about them; but the clever superintendent was by no means sure that Crabstick did not know more than she said. Mrs. Carbuncle and Lord George had also seen the diamonds at Portray. There was no doubt whatever as to the diamonds having been in the iron box; nor was there, said Lord George, any doubt but that this special necklace had acquired so much public notice from the fact of the threatened lawsuit, as might make its circumstances and value known to London thieves. The tall footman was not examined, but was detained by the police under a remand given by the magistrates.
Much information as to what had been done oozed out in spite of the precautions of the discreet superintendent. The wires had been put into operation in every direction, and it had been discovered that one man whom nobody knew had left the down mail train at Annan, and another at Dumfries. These men had taken tickets by the train leaving Carlisle between four and five A.M., and were supposed to have been the two thieves. It had been nearly seven before the theft had been discovered, and by that time not only had the men reached the towns named, but had had time to make their way back again or further on into Scotland. At any rate, for the present, all trace of them was lost. The sergeant of police did not doubt but that one of these men was making his way up to London with the necklace in his pocket. This was told to Lizzie by Lord George; and though she was awe-struck by the danger of her situation, she nevertheless did feel some satisfaction in remembering that she and she only held the key of the mystery. And then as to those poor thieves! What must have been their consternation when they found, after all the labour and perils of the night, that the box contained no diamonds — that the treasure was not there, and that they were nevertheless bound to save themselves by flight and stratagem from the hands of the police! Lizzie, as she thought of this, almost pitied the poor thieves. What a consternation there would be among the Camperdowns and the Garnetts, among the Mopuses and Benjamins, when the news was heard in London. Lizzie almost enjoyed it. As her mind went on making fresh schemes on the subject, a morbid desire of increasing the mystery took possession of her. She was quite sure that nobody knew her secret, and that nobody as yet could even guess it. There was great danger, but there might be delight and even profit if she could safely dispose of the jewels before suspicion against herself should be aroused. She could understand that a rumour should get to the police that the box had been empty, even if the thieves were not taken; but such rumour would avail nothing if she could only dispose of the diamonds. As she first thought of all this, the only plan hitherto suggested to herself would require her immediate return to Portray. If she were at Portray she could find a spot in which she could bury the necklace. But she was obliged to allow herself now to be hurried up to London. When she got into the train the little parcel was in her desk, and the key of her desk was fastened round her neck.
They had secured a compartment for themselves from Carlisle to London, and of course filled four seats. “As I am alive,” said Lord George as soon as the train had left the station, “that head policeman thinks that I am the thief.” Mrs. Carbuncle laughed. Lizzie protested that this was absurd. Lucinda declared that such a suspicion would be vastly amusing. “It’s a fact,” continued Lord George. “I can see it in the fellow’s eye, and I feel it to be a compliment. They are so very ‘cute that they delight in suspicions. I remember when the altar-plate was stolen from Barchester cathedral some years ago, a splendid idea occurred to one of the police that the bishop had taken it.”
“Really?” asked Lizzie.
“Oh, yes — really. I don’t doubt but that there is already a belief in some of their minds that you have stolen your own diamonds for the sake of getting the better of Mr. Camperdown.”
“But what could I do with them if I had?” asked Lizzie.
“Sell them, of course. There is always a market for such goods.”
“But who would buy them?”
“If you have been so clever, Lady Eustace, I’ll find a purchaser for them. One would have to go a good distance to do it — and there would be some expense. But the thing could be done. Vienna, I should think, would be about the place.”
“Very well, then,” said Lizzie. “You won’t be surprised if I ask you to take the journey for me.” Then they all laughed, and were very much amused. It was quite agreed among them that Lizzie bore her loss very well.
“I shouldn’t care the least for losing them,” said Lizzie, “only that Florian gave them to me. They have been such a vexation to me that to be without them will be a comfort.” Her desk had been brought into the carriage, and was now used as a foot-stool in place of the box which was gone.
They arrived at Mrs. Carbuncle’s house in Hertford Street quite late, between ten and eleven; but a note had been sent from Lizzie to her cousin Frank’s address from the Euston Square station by a commissionnaire. Indeed, two notes were sent — one to the House of Commons, and the other to the Grosvenor Hotel. “My necklace has been stolen. Come to me early tomorrow at Mrs. Carbuncle’s house, No.— Hertford Street.” And he did come, before Lizzie was up. Crabstick brought her mistress word that Mr. Greystock was in the parlour soon after nine o’clock. Lizzie again hurried on her clothes so that she might see her cousin, taking care as she did, so that though her toilet might betray haste, it should not be other than charming. And as she dressed she endeavoured to come to some conclusion. Would it not be best for her that she should tell everything to her cousin, and throw herself upon his mercy, trusting to his ingenuity to extricate her from her difficulties? She had been thinking of her position almost through the entire night, and had remembered that at Carlisle she had committed perjury. She had sworn that the diamonds had been left by her in the box. And should they be found with her, it might be that they would put her in jail for stealing them. Little mercy could she expect from Mr. Camperdown should she fall into that gentleman’s hands! But Frank, if she would even yet tell him everything honestly, might probably save her.
“What is this about the diamonds?” he asked as soon as he saw her. She had flown almost into his arms as though carried there by the excitement of the moment. “You don’t really mean that they have been stolen?”
“I do, Frank.”
“On the journey?”
“Yes, Frank — at the inn at Carlisle.”
“Box and all?” Then she told him the whole story — not the true story, but the story as it was believed by all the world. She found it to be impossible to tell him the true story. “And the box was broken open, and left in the street?”
“Under an archway,” said Lizzie.
“And what do the police think?”
“I don’t know what they think. Lord George says that they believe he is the thief.”
“He knew of them,” said Frank, as though he imagined that the suggestion was not altogether absurd.
“Oh, yes — he knew of them.”
“And what is to be done?”
“I don’t know. I’ve sent for you to tell me.” Then Frank averred that information should be immediately given to Mr. Camperdown. He would himself call on Mr. Camperdown, and would also see the head of the London police. He did not doubt but that all the circumstances were already known in London at the police office; but it might be well that he should see the officer. He was acquainted with the gentleman, and might perhaps learn something. Lizzie at once acceded, and Frank went direct to Mr. Camperdown’s offices.
“If I had lost ten thousand pounds in that way,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, “I think I should have broken my heart.” Lizzie felt that her heart was bursting rather than being broken, because the ten thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds was not really lost.
Lucy Morris went to Lady Linlithgow early in October, and was still with Lady Linlithgow when Lizzie Eustace returned to London in January. During these three months she certainly had not been happy. In the first place, she had not once seen her lover. This had aroused no anger or suspicion in her bosom against him, because the old countess had told her that she would have no lover come to the house, and that, above all, she would not allow a young man with whom she herself was connected to come in that guise to her companion. “From all I hear,” said Lady Linlithgow, “it’s not at all likely to be a match; and at any rate it can’t go on here.” Lucy thought that she would be doing no more than standing up properly for her lover by asserting her conviction that it would be a match; and she did assert it bravely; but she made no petition for his presence, and bore that trouble bravely. In the next place, Frank was not a satisfactory correspondent. He did write to her occasionally; and he wrote also to the old countess immediately on his return to town from Bobsborough a letter which was intended as an answer to that which she had written to Mrs. Greystock. What was said in that letter Lucy never knew; but she did know that Frank’s few letters to herself were not full and hearty — were not such thorough-going love-letters as lovers write to each other when they feel unlimited satisfaction in the work. She excused him, telling herself that he was overworked, that with his double trade of legislator and lawyer he could hardly be expected to write letters, that men, in respect of letter-writing, are not as women are, and the like; but still there grew at her heart a little weed of care, which from week to week spread its noxious, heavy-scented leaves, and robbed her of her joyousness. To be loved by her lover, and to feel that she was his, to have a lover of her own to whom she could thoroughly devote herself, to be conscious that she was one of those happy women in the world who find a mate worthy of worship as well as love — this to her was so great a joy that even the sadness of her present position could not utterly depress her. From day to day she assured herself that she did not doubt and would not doubt-that there was no cause for doubt; that she would herself be base were she to admit any shadow of suspicion. But yet his absence, and the shortness of those little notes, which came perhaps once a fortnight, did tell upon her in opposition to her own convictions. Each note as it came was answered — instantly; but she would not write except when the notes came. She would not seem to reproach him by writing oftener than he wrote. When he had given her so much, and she had nothing but her confidence to give in return, would she stint him in that? There can be no love, she said, without confidence, and it was the pride of her heart to love him.
The circumstances of her present life were desperately weary to her. She could hardly understand why it was that Lady Linlithgow should desire her presence. She was required to do nothing. She had no duties to perform, and, as it seemed to her, was of no use to any one. The countess would not even allow her to be of ordinary service in the house. Lady Linlithgow, as she had said of herself, poked her own fires, carved her own meat, lit her own candles, opened and shut the doors for herself, wrote her own letters, and did not even like to have books read to her. She simply chose to have some one sitting with her to whom she could speak and make little cross-grained, sarcastic, and ill-natured remarks. There was no company at the house in Brook Street, and when the countess herself went out, she went out alone. Even when she had a cab to go shopping, or to make calls, she rarely asked Lucy to go with her; and was benevolent chiefly in this — that if Lucy chose to walk round the square or as far as the park, her ladyship’s maid was allowed to accompany her for protection. Poor Lucy often told herself that such a life would be unbearable, were it not for the supreme satisfaction she had in remembering her lover. And then the arrangement had been made only for six months. She did not feel quite assured of her fate at the end of those six months, but she believed that there would come to her a residence in a sort of outer garden to that sweet Elysium in which she was to pass her life. The Elysium would be Frank’s house; and the outer garden was the deanery at Bobsborough.
Twice during the three months Lady Fawn, with two of the girls, came to call upon her. On the first occasion she was unluckily out, taking advantage of the protection of her ladyship’s maid in getting a little air. Lady Linlithgow had also been away, and Lady Fawn had seen no one. Afterwards, both Lucy and her ladyship were found at home, and Lady Fawn was full of graciousness and affection. “I dare say you’ve got something to say to each other,” said Lady Linlithgow, “and I’ll go away.”
“Pray don’t let us disturb you,” said Lady Fawn.
“You’d only abuse me if I didn’t,” said Lady Linlithgow.
As soon as she was gone Lucy rushed into her friend’s arms. “It is so nice to see you again!”
“Yes, my dear, isn’t it? I did come before, you know.”
“You have been so good to me! To see you again is like the violets and primroses.” She was crouching close to Lady Fawn, with her hand in that of her friend Lydia. “I haven’t a word to say against Lady Linlithgow, but it is like winter here, after dear Richmond.”
“Well, we think we’re prettier at Richmond,” said Lady Fawn.
“There were such hundreds of things to do there,” said Lucy. “After all, what a comfort it is to have things to do.”
“Why did you come away?” said Lydia.
“Oh, I was obliged. You mustn’t scold me now that you have come to see me.”
There were a hundred things to be said about Fawn Court and the children, and a hundred more things about Lady Linlithgow and Bruton Street. Then, at last, Lady Fawn asked the one important question. “And now, my dear, what about Mr. Greystock?”
“Oh, I don’t know; nothing particular, Lady Fawn. It’s just as it was, and I am — quite satisfied.”
“You see him sometimes?”
“No, never. I have not seen him since the last time he came down to Richmond. Lady Linlithgow doesn’t allow — followers.” There was a pleasant little spark of laughter in Lucy’s eye as she said this, which would have told to any bystander the whole story of the affection which existed between her and Lady Fawn.
“That’s very ill-natured,” said Lydia.
“And he’s a sort of a cousin, too,” said Lady Fawn.
“That’s just the reason why,” said Lucy, explaining. “Of course Lady Linlithgow thinks that her sister’s nephew can do better than marry her companion. It’s a matter of course she should think so. What I am most afraid of is that the dean and Mrs. Greystock should think so too.”
No doubt the dean and Mrs. Greystock would think so. Lady Fawn was very sure of that. Lady Fawn was one of the best women breathing, unselfish, motherly, affectionate, appreciative, and never happy unless she was doing good to somebody. It was her nature to be soft, and kind, and beneficent. But she knew very well that if she had had a son, a second son, situated as was Frank Greystock, she would not wish him to marry a girl without a penny, who was forced to earn her bread by being a governess. The sacrifice on Mr. Greystock’s part would, in her estimation, be so great, that she did not believe that it would be made. Womanlike, she regarded the man as being so much more important than the woman that she could not think that Frank Greystock would devote himself simply to such a one as Lucy Morris. Had Lady Fawn been asked which was the better creature of the two, her late governess or the rising barrister who had declared himself to be that governess’s lover, she would have said that no man could be better than Lucy. She knew Lucy’s worth and goodness so well that she was ready herself to do any act of friendship on behalf of one so sweet and excellent. For herself and her girls Lucy was a companion and friend in every way satisfactory. But was it probable that a man of the world, such as was Frank Greystock, a rising man, a member of Parliament, one who, as everybody knew, was especially in want of money — was it probable that such a man as this would make her his wife just because she was good, and worthy, and sweet-natured? No doubt the man had said that he would do so, and Lady Fawn’s fears betrayed on her ladyship’s part a very bad opinion of men in general. It may seem to be a paradox to assert that such bad opinion sprang from the high idea which she entertained of the importance of men in general; but it was so. She had but one son, and of all her children he was the least worthy; but he was more important to her than all her daughters. Between her own girls and Lucy she hardly made any difference; but when her son had chosen to quarrel with Lucy, it had been necessary to send Lucy to eat her meals up-stairs. She could not believe that Mr. Greystock should think so much of such a little girl as to marry her. Mr. Greystock would no doubt behave very badly in not doing so; but then men do so often behave very badly! And at the bottom of her heart she almost thought that they might be excused for doing so. According to her view of things, a man out in the world had so many things to think of, and was so very important, that he could hardly be expected to act at all times with truth and sincerity.
Lucy had suggested that the dean and Mrs. Greystock would dislike the marriage, and upon that hint Lady Fawn spoke. “Nothing is settled, I suppose, as to where you are to go when the six months are over?”
“Nothing as yet, Lady Fawn.”
“They haven’t asked you to go to Bobsborough?”
Lucy would have given the world not to blush as she answered, but she did blush. “Nothing is fixed, Lady Fawn.”
“Something should be fixed, Lucy. It should be settled by this time, shouldn’t it, dear? What will you do without a home, if at the end of the six months Lady Linlithgow should say that she doesn’t want you any more?”
Lucy certainly did not look forward to a condition in which Lady Linlithgow should be the arbitress of her destiny. The idea of staying with the countess was almost as bad to her as that of finding herself altogether homeless. She was still blushing, feeling herself to be hot and embarrassed. But Lady Fawn sat waiting for an answer. To Lucy there was only one answer possible. “I will ask Mr. Greystock what I am to do.” Lady Fawn shook her head. “You don’t believe in Mr. Greystock, Lady Fawn; but I do.”
“My darling girl,” said her ladyship, making the special speech for the sake of making which she had travelled up from Richmond, “it is not exactly a question of belief, but one of common prudence. No girl should allow herself to depend on a man before she is married to him. By doing so she will be apt to lose even his respect.”
“I didn’t mean for money,” said Lucy, hotter than ever, with her eyes full of tears.
“She should not be in any respect at his disposal till he has bound himself to her at the altar. You may believe me, Lucy, when I tell you so. It is only because I love you so that I say so.”
“I know that, Lady Fawn.”
“When your time here is over, just put up your things and come back to Richmond. You need fear nothing with us. Frederic quite liked your way of parting with him at last, and all that little affair is forgotten. At Fawn Court you’ll be safe; and you shall be happy, too, if we can make you happy. It’s the proper place for you.”
“Of course you’ll come,” said Diana Fawn.
“You’ll be the worst little thing in the world if you don’t,” said Lydia. “We don’t know what to do without you. Do we, mamma?”
“Lucy will please us all by coming back to her old home,” said Lady Fawn. The tears were now streaming down Lucy’s face, so that she was hardly able to say a word in answer to all this kindness. And she did not know what word to say. Were she to accept the offer made to her, and acknowledge that she could do nothing better than creep back under her old friend’s wing, would she not thereby be showing that she doubted her lover? But she could not go to the dean’s house unless the dean and his wife were pleased to take her; and, suspecting as she did that they would not be pleased, would it become her to throw upon her lover the burden of finding for her a home with people who did not want her? Had she been welcome at Bobsborough, Mrs. Greystock would surely have so told her before this. “You needn’t say a word, my dear,” said Lady Fawn. “You’ll come, and there’s an end of it.”
“But you don’t want me any more,” said Lucy from amid her sobs.
“That’s just all that you know about it,” said Lydia. “We do want you — more than anything.”
“I wonder whether I may come in now,” said Lady Linlithgow, entering the room. As it was the countess’s own drawing-room, as it was now mid-winter, and as the fire in the dining-room had been allowed, as was usual, to sink almost to two hot coals, the request was not unreasonable. Lady Fawn was profuse in her thanks, and immediately began to account for Lucy’s tears, pleading their dear friendship and their long absence, and poor Lucy’s emotional state of mind. Then she took her leave, and Lucy, as soon as she had been kissed by her friends outside the drawing-room door, took herself to her bedroom and finished her tears in the cold.
“Have you heard the news?” said Lady Linlithgow to her companion about a month after this. Lady Linlithgow had been out, and asked the question immediately on her return. Lucy, of course, had heard no news. “Lizzie Eustace has just come back to London, and has had all her jewels stolen on the road.”
“The diamonds?” asked Lucy with amaze.
“Yes, the Eustace diamonds! And they didn’t belong to her any more than they did to you. They’ve been taken any way, and from what I hear I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she had arranged the whole matter herself.”
“Arranged that they should be stolen?”
“Just that, my dear. It would be the very thing for Lizzie Eustace to do. She’s clever enough for anything.”
“But, Lady Linlithgow ——”
“I know all about that. Of course it would be very wicked, and if it were found out she’d be put in the dock and tried for her life. It is just what I expect she’ll come to some of these days. She has gone and got up a friendship with some disreputable people, and was travelling with them. There was a man who calls himself Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. I know him, and can remember when he was errand boy to a disreputable lawyer at Aberdeen.” This assertion was a falsehood on the part of the countess. Lord George had never been an errand boy, and the Aberdeen lawyer — as provincial Scotch lawyers go — had been by no means disreputable. “I’m told that the police think that he has got them.”
“How very dreadful!”
“Yes; it’s dreadful enough. At any rate, men got into Lizzie’s room at night and took away the iron box and diamonds, and all. It may be she was asleep at the time; but she’s one of those who pretty nearly always sleep with one eye open.”
“She can’t be so bad as that, Lady Linlithgow.”
“Perhaps not. We shall see. They had just begun a lawsuit about the diamonds, to get them back. And then all at once they’re stolen. It looks what the men call — fishy. I’m told that all the police in London are up about it.”
On the very next day who should come to Brook Street but Lizzie Eustace herself. She and her aunt had quarrelled, and they hated each other; but the old woman had called upon Lizzie, advising her, as the reader will perhaps remember, to give up the diamonds, and now Lizzie returned the visit. “So you’re here, installed in poor Macnulty’s place,” began Lizzie to her old friend, the countess at the moment being out of the room.
“I am staying with your aunt for a few months as her companion. Is it true, Lizzie, that all your diamonds have been stolen?” Lizzie gave an account of the robbery, true in every respect except in regard to the contents of the box. Poor Lizzie had been wronged in that matter by the countess, for the robbery had been quite genuine. The man had opened her room and taken her box, and she had slept through it all. And then the broken box had been found, and was in the hands of the police, and was evidence of the fact.
“People seem to think it possible,” said Lizzie, “that Mr. Camperdown the lawyer arranged it all.” As this suggestion was being made, Lady Linlithgow came in, and then Lizzie repeated the whole story of the robbery. Though the aunt and niece were open and declared enemies, the present circumstances were so peculiar and full of interest that conversation for a time almost amicable took place between them. “As the diamonds were so valuable, I thought it right, Aunt Susanna, to come and tell you myself.”
“It’s very good of you, but I’d heard it already. I was telling Miss Morris yesterday what very odd things there are being said about it.”
“Weren’t you very much frightened?” asked Lucy.
“You see, my child, I knew nothing about it till it was all over. The man cut the bit out of the door in the most beautiful way, without my ever hearing the least sound of the saw.”
“And you that sleep so light,” said the countess.
“They say that perhaps something was put into the wine at dinner to make me sleep.”
“Ah!” ejaculated the countess, who did not for a moment give up her own erroneous suspicion; “very likely.”
“And they do say these people can do things without making the slightest tittle of noise. At any rate the box was gone.”
“And the diamonds?” asked Lucy.
“Oh yes, of course. And now there is such a fuss about it! The police keep on coming to me almost every day.”
“And what do the police think?” asked Lady Linlithgow. “I am told that they have their suspicions.”
“No doubt they have their suspicions,” said Lizzie.
“You travelled up with friends, I suppose.”
“Oh yes, with Lord George de Bruce Carruthers; and with Mrs. Carbuncle, who is my particular friend, and with Lucinda Roanoke, who is just going to be married to Sir Griffin Tewett. We were quite a large party.”
“And Macnulty?”
“No. I left Miss Macnulty at Portray with my darling. They thought he had better remain a little longer in Scotland.”
“Ah, yes; perhaps Lord George de Bruce Carruthers does not care for babies. I can easily believe that. I wish Macnulty had been with you.”
“Why do you wish that?” said Lizzie, who already was beginning to feel that the countess intended, as usual, to make herself disagreeable.
“She’s a stupid, dull, pig-headed creature; but one can believe what she says.”
“And don’t you believe what I say?” demanded Lizzie.
“It’s all true, no doubt, that the diamonds are gone.”
“Indeed it is.”
“But I don’t know much about Lord George de Bruce Carruthers.”
“He’s the brother of a marquis, anyway,” said “Lizzie, who thought that she might thus best answer the mother of a Scotch earl.
“I remember when he was plain George Carruthers, running about the streets of Aberdeen, and it was well with him when his shoes weren’t broken at the toes and down at heel. He earned his bread then, such as it was. Nobody knows how he gets it now. Why does he call himself de Bruce, I wonder?”
“Because his godfathers and godmothers gave him that name when he was made a child of Christ, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven,” said Lizzie, ever so pertly.
“I don’t believe a bit of it.”
“I wasn’t there to see, Aunt Susanna; and therefore I can’t swear to it. That’s his name in all the peerages, and I suppose they ought to know.”
“And what does Lord George de Bruce say about the diamonds?”
Now it had come to pass that Lady Eustace herself did not feel altogether sure that Lord George had not had a hand in this robbery. It would have been a trick worthy of a genuine Corsair, to arrange and carry out such a scheme for the appropriation of so rich a spoil. A watch or a brooch would, of course, be beneath the notice of a good genuine Corsair — of a Corsair who was written down in the peerage as a marquis’s brother; but diamonds worth ten thousand pounds are not to be had every day. A Corsair must live, and if not by plunder rich as that, how then? If Lord George had concocted this little scheme, he would naturally be ignorant of the true event of the robbery till he should meet the humble executors of his design, and would, as Lizzie thought, have remained’ unaware of the truth till his arrival in London. That he had been ignorant of the truth during the journey was evident to her. But they had now been three days in London, during which she had seen him once. At that interview he had been sullen and almost cross, and had said next to nothing about the robbery. He made but one remark about it. “I have told the chief man here,” he said, “that I shall be ready to give any evidence in my power when called upon. Till then I shall take no further steps in the matter. I have been asked questions that should not have been asked.” In saying this he had used a tone which prevented further conversation on the subject, but Lizzie, as she thought of it all, remembered his jocular remark, made in the railway carriage, as to the suspicion which had already been expressed on the matter in regard to himself. If he had been the perpetrator, and had then found that he had only stolen the box, how wonderful would be the mystery!
“He hasn’t got anything to say,” replied Lizzie to the question of the countess.
“And who is your Mrs. Carbuncle?” asked the old woman.
“A particular friend of mine with whom I am staying at present. You don’t go about a great deal, Aunt Linlithgow, but surely you must have met Mrs. Carbuncle.”
“I’m an ignorant old woman, no doubt. My dear, I’m not at all surprised at your losing your diamonds. The pity is that they weren’t your own.”
“They were my own.”
“The loss will fall on you, no doubt, because the Eustace people will make you pay for them. You’ll have to give up half your jointure for your life. That’s what it will come to. To think of your travelling about with those things in a box!”
“They were my own, and I had a right to do what I liked with them. Nobody accuses you of taking them.”
“That’s quite true. Nobody will accuse me. I suppose Lord George has left England for the benefit of his health. It would not at all surprise me if I were to hear that Mrs. Carbuncle had followed him; not in the least.”
“You’re just like yourself, Aunt Susanna,” said Lizzie, getting up and taking her leave. “Good-by, Lucy. I hope you’re happy and comfortable here. Do you ever see a certain friend of ours now?”
“If you mean Mr. Greystock, I haven’t seen him since I left Fawn Court,” said Lucy, with dignity.
When Lizzie was gone Lady Linlithgow spoke her mind freely about her niece. “Lizzie Eustace won’t come to any good. When I heard that she was engaged to that prig, Lord Fawn, I had some hopes that she might be kept out of harm. That’s all over, of course. When he heard about the necklace he wasn’t going to put his neck into that scrape. But now she’s getting among such a set that nothing can save her. She has taken to hunting, and rides about the country like a madwoman.”
“A great many ladies hunt,” said Lucy.
“And she’s got hold of this Lord George, and of that horrid American woman that nobody knows anything about. They’ve got the diamonds between them, I don’t doubt. I’ll bet you sixpence that the police find out all about it, and that there is some terrible scandal. The diamonds were no more hers than they were mine, and she’ll be made to pay for them.”
The necklace, then meanwhile, was still locked up in Lizzie’s desk — with a patent Bramah key — in Mrs. Carbuncle’s house, and was a terrible trouble to our unhappy friend.
Before the end of January everybody in London had heard of the great robbery at Carlisle; and most people had heard also that there was something very peculiar in the matter — something more than a robbery. Various rumours were afloat. It had become widely known that the diamonds were to be the subject of litigation between the young widow and the trustees of the Eustace estate; and it was known also that Lord Fawn had engaged himself to marry the widow, and had then retreated from his engagement simply on account of this litigation. There were strong parties formed in the matter; whom we may call Lizzieites and Antilizzieites. The Lizzieites were of opinion that poor Lady Eustace was being very ill-treated — that the diamonds did probably belong to her, and that Lord Fawn, at any rate, clearly ought to be her own. It was worthy of remark that these Lizzieites were all of them Conservatives. Frank Greystock had probably set the party on foot; and it was natural that political opponents should believe that a noble young Under-Secretary of State on the Liberal side — such as Lord Fawn — had misbehaved himself. When the matter at last became of such importance as to demand leading articles in the newspapers, those journals which had devoted themselves to upholding the conservative politicians of the day were very heavy indeed upon Lord Fawn. The whole force of the Government, however, was Antilizzieite; and as the controversy advanced, every good Liberal became aware that there was nothing so wicked, so rapacious, so bold, or so cunning but that Lady Eustace might have done it, or caused it to be done, without delay, without difficulty, and without scruple. Lady Glencora Palliser for a while endeavoured to defend Lizzie in Liberal circles — from generosity rather than from any real belief, and instigated, perhaps, by a feeling that any woman in society who was capable of doing anything extraordinary ought to be defended. But even Lady Glencora was forced to abandon her generosity, and to confess, on behalf of her party, that Lizzie Eustace was — a very wicked young woman indeed. All this, no doubt, grew out of the diamonds, and chiefly arose from the robbery; but there had been enough of notoriety attached to Lizzie before the affair at Carlisle to make people fancy that they had understood her character long before that.
The party assembled at Matching Priory, a country house belonging to Mr. Palliser, in which Lady Glencora took much delight, was not large, because Mr. Palliser’s uncle, the Duke of Omnium, who was with them, was now a very old man, and one who did not like very large gatherings of people. Lord and Lady Chiltern were there — that Lord Chiltern who had been known so long and so well in the hunting counties of England, and that Lady Chiltern who had been so popular in London as the beautiful Violet Effingham; and Mr. and Mrs. Grey were there, very particular friends of Mr. Palliser’s. Mr. Grey was now sitting for the borough of Silverbridge, in which the Duke of Omnium was still presumed to have a controlling influence, in spite of all Reform bills, and Mrs. Grey was in some distant way connected with Lady Glencora. And Madame Max Goesler was there — a lady whose society was still much affected by the old duke; and Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen — who had been brought there, not perhaps altogether because they were greatly loved, but in order that the gentleman’s services might be made available by Mr. Palliser in reference to some great reform about to be introduced in monetary matters. Mr. Palliser, who was now Chancellor of the Exchequer, was intending to alter the value of the penny. Unless the work should be too much for him, and he should die before he had accomplished the self-imposed task, the future penny was to be made, under his auspices, to contain five farthings, and the shilling ten pennies. It was thought that if this could be accomplished, the arithmetic of the whole world would be so simplified that henceforward the name of Palliser would be blessed by all schoolboys, clerks, shopkeepers, and financiers. But the difficulties were so great that Mr. Palliser’s hair was already grey from toil, and his shoulders bent by the burden imposed upon them. Mr. Bonteen, with two private secretaries from the Treasury, was now at Matching to assist Mr. Palliser; and it was thought that both Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen were near to madness under the pressure of the five-farthing penny. Mr. Bonteen had remarked to many of his political friends that those two extra farthings that could not be made to go into the shilling would put him into his cold grave before the world would know what he had done — or had rewarded him for it with a handle to his name, and a pension. Lord Fawn was also at Matching — a suggestion having been made to Lady Glencora by some leading Liberals that he should be supported in his difficulties by her hospitality.
The mind of Mr. Palliser himself was too deeply engaged to admit of its being interested in the great necklace affair; but, of all the others assembled, there was not one who did not listen anxiously for news on the subject. As regarded the old duke, it had been found to be quite a godsend; and from post to post as the facts reached Matching they were communicated to him. And, indeed, there were some there who would not wait for the post, but had the news about poor Lizzie’s diamonds down by the wires. The matter was of the greatest moment to Lord Fawn, and Lady Glencora was perhaps justified, on his behalf, in demanding a preference for her affairs over the messages which were continually passing between Matching and the Treasury respecting those two ill-conditioned farthings.
“Duke,” she said, entering rather abruptly the small, warm, luxurious room in which her husband’s uncle was passing the morning —“Duke, they say now that after all the diamonds were not in the box when it was taken out of the room at Carlisle.” The duke was reclining in an easy-chair, with his head leaning forward on his breast, and Madame Goesler was reading to him. It was now three o’clock, and the old man had been brought down to this room after his breakfast. Madame Goesler was reading the last famous new novel, and the duke was dozing. That, probably, was the fault neither of the reader nor of the novelist, as the duke was wont to doze in these days. But Lady Glencora’s tidings awakened him completely. She had the telegram in her hand — so that he could perceive that the very latest news was brought to him.
“The diamonds not in the box!” he said — pushing his head a little more forward in his eagerness, and sitting with the extended fingers of his two hands touching each other.
“Barrington Erle says that Major Mackintosh is almost sure the diamonds were not there.” Major Mackintosh was an officer very high in the police force, whom everybody trusted implicitly, and as to whom the outward world believed that he could discover the perpetrators of any iniquity, if he would only take the trouble to look into it. Such was the pressing nature of his duties that he found himself compelled in one way or another to give up about sixteen hours a day to them; but the outer world accused him of idleness. There was nothing he couldn’t find out — only he would not give himself the trouble to find out all the things that happened. Two or three newspapers had already been very hard upon him in regard to the Eustace diamonds. Such a mystery as that, they said, he ought to have unravelled long ago. That he had not unravelled it yet was quite certain.
“The diamonds not in the box!” said the duke.
“Then she must have known it,” said Madame Goesler.
“That doesn’t quite follow, Madame Max,” said Lady Glencora.
“But why shouldn’t the diamonds have been in the box?” asked the duke. As this was the first intimation given to Lady Glencora of any suspicion that the diamonds had not been taken with the box, and as this had been received by telegraph, she could not answer the duke’s question with any clear exposition of her own. She put up her hands and shook her head. “What does Plantagenet think about it?” asked the duke. Plantagenet Palliser was the full name of the duke’s nephew and heir. The duke’s mind was evidently much disturbed.
“He doesn’t think that either the box or the diamonds were ever worth five farthings,” said Lady Glencora.
“The diamonds not in the box!” repeated the duke. “Madame Max, do you believe that the diamonds were not in the box?” Madame Goesler shrugged her shoulders and made no answer; but the shrugging of her shoulders was quite satisfactory to the duke, who always thought that Madame Goesler did everything better than anybody else. Lady Glencora stayed with her uncle for the best part of an hour, and every word spoken was devoted to Lizzie and her necklace; but as this new idea had been broached, and as they had no other information than that conveyed in the telegram, very little light could be thrown upon it. But on the next morning there came a letter from Barrington Erie to Lady Glencora, which told so much, and hinted so much more, that it will be well to give it to the reader.
“TRAVELLERS’, 29 Jan., 186-.
“MY DEAR LADY GLENCORA: I hope you got my telegram yesterday. I had just seen Mackintosh, on whose behalf, however, I must say that he told me as little as he possibly could. It is leaking out, however, on every side, that the police believe that when the box was taken out of the room at Carlisle, the diamonds were not in it. As far as I can learn, they ground this suspicion on the fact that they cannot trace the stones. They say that, if such a lot of diamonds had been through the thieves’ market in London, they would have left some track behind them. As far as I can judge, Mackintosh thinks that Lord George has them, but that her ladyship gave them to him; and that this little game of the robbery at Carlisle was planned to put John Eustace and the lawyers off the scent. If it should turn out that the box was opened before it left Portray, that the door of her ladyship’s room was cut by her ladyship’s self, or by his lordship with her ladyship’s aid, and that the fragments of the box were carried out of the hotel by his lordship in person, it will altogether have been so delightful a plot, that all concerned in it ought to be canonised or at least allowed to keep their plunder. An old detective told me that the opening of the box under the arch of the railway, in an exposed place, could hardly have been executed so neatly as was done; that no thief so situated would have given the time necessary to it; and that, if there had been thieves at all at work, they would have been traced. Against this, there is the certain fact, as I have heard from various men engaged in the inquiry, that certain persons among the community of thieves are very much at loggerheads with each other, the higher, or creative department in thiefdom, accusing the lower or mechanical department of gross treachery in having appropriated to its own sole profit plunder, for the taking of which it had undertaken to receive a certain stipulated price. But then it may be the case that his lordship and her ladyship have set such a rumour abroad for the sake of putting the police off the scent. Upon the whole, the little mystery is quite delightful; and has put the ballot, and poor Mr. Palliser’s five-farthinged penny, quite out of joint. Nobody now cares for anything except the Eustace diamonds. Lord George, I am told, has offered to fight everybody or anybody, beginning with Lord Fawn and ending with Major Mackintosh. Should he be innocent, which of course is possible, the thing must be annoying. I should not at all wonder myself if it should turn out that her ladyship left them in Scotland. The place there, however, has been searched, in compliance with an order from the police and by her ladyship’s consent.
“Don’t let Mr. Palliser quite kill himself. I hope the Bonteen plan answers. I never knew a man who could find more farthings in a shilling that. Mr. Bonteen, Remember me very kindly to the duke, and pray enable poor Fawn to keep up his spirits. If he likes to arrange a meeting with Lord George, I shall be only too happy to be his friend. You remember our last duel. Chiltern is with you, and can put Fawn up to the proper way of getting over to Flanders, and of returning, should he chance to escape.
“Yours always most faithfully,
“BARRINGTON ERLE
“Of course I’ll keep you posted in everything respecting the necklace till you come to town yourself.”
The whole of this letter Lady Glencora read to the duke, to Lady Chiltern, and to Madame Goesler; and the principal contents of it she repeated to the entire company. It was certainly the general belief at Matching that Lord George had the diamonds in his possession, either with or without the assistance of their late fair possessor.
The duke was struck with awe when he thought of all the circumstances. “The brother of a marquis!” he said to his nephew’s wife. “It’s such a disgrace to the peerage!”
“As for that, duke,” said Lady Glencora, “the peerage is used to it by this time.”
“I never-heard of such an affair as this before.”
“I don’t see why the brother of a marquis shouldn’t turn thief as well as anybody else. They say he hasn’t got anything of his own; and I suppose that is what makes men steal other people’s property. Peers go into trade, and peeresses gamble on the Stock Exchange. Peers become bankrupt, and the sons of peers run away, just like other men. I don’t see why all enterprises should not be open to them. But to think of that little purring cat, Lady Eustace, having been so very-very clever! It makes me quite envious.”
All this took place in the morning — that is,— about two o’clock; but after dinner the subject became general. There might be some little reticence in regard to Lord Fawn’s feelings, but it was not sufficient to banish a subject so interesting from the minds and lips of the company. “The Tewett marriage is to come off, after all,” said Mrs. Bonteen. “I’ve a letter from dear Mrs. Rutter, telling me so as a fact.”
“I wonder whether Miss Roanoke will be allowed to wear one or two of the diamonds at the wedding,” suggested one of the private secretaries.
“Nobody will dare to wear a diamond at all next season,” said Lady Glencora. “As for my own, I sha’n’t think of having them out. I should always feel that I was being inspected.”
“Unless they unravel the mystery,” said Madame Goesler.
“I hope they won’t do that,” said Lady Glencora. “The play is too good to come to an end so soon. If we hear that Lord George is engaged to Lady Eustace, nothing, I suppose, can be done to stop the marriage.”
“Why shouldn’t she marry if she pleases?” asked Mr. Palliser.
“I’ve not the slightest objection to her being married. I hope she will, with all my heart. I certainly think she should have her husband after buying him at such a price. I suppose Lord Fawn won’t forbid the banns.” These last words were only whispered to her next neighbour, Lord Chiltern; but poor Lord Fawn saw the whisper, and was aware that it must have had reference to his condition.
On the next morning there came further news. The police had asked permission from their occupants to search the rooms in which lived Lady Eustace and Lord George, and in each case the permission had been refused. So said Barrington Erle in his letter to Lady Glencora. Lord George had told the applicant, very roughly, that nobody should touch an article belonging to him without a search-warrant. If any magistrate would dare to give such a warrant, let him do it. “I’m told that Lord George acts the indignant madman uncommonly well,” said Barrington Erle in his letter. As for poor Lizzie, she had fainted when the proposition was made to her. The request was renewed as soon as she had been brought to herself; and then she refused, on the advice, as she said, of her cousin, Mr. Grey stock. Barrington Erie went on to say that the police were very much blamed. It was believed that no information could be laid before a magistrate sufficient to justify a search-warrant; and, in such circumstances, no search should have been attempted. Such was the public verdict, as declared in Barrington Erle’s last letter to Lady Glencora.
Mr. Palliser was of opinion that the attempt to search the lady’s house was iniquitous. Mr. Bonteen shook his head, and rather thought that, if he were Home Secretary, he would have had the search made. Lady Chiltern said that if policemen came to her, they might search everything she had in the world. Mrs. Grey reminded them that all they really knew of the unfortunate woman was that her jewel-box had been stolen out of her bedroom at her hotel. Madame Goesler was of opinion that a lady who could carry such a box about the country with her deserved to have it stolen. Lord Fawn felt himself obliged to confess that he agreed altogether with Madame Goesler. Unfortunately, he had been acquainted with the lady, and now was constrained to say that her conduct had been such as to justify the suspicions of the police.
“Of course we all suspect her,” said Lady Glencora, “and of course we suspect Lord George too; and Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke. But then, you know, if I were to lose my diamonds, people would suspect me just the same, or perhaps Plantagenet. It is so delightful to think that a woman has stolen her own property, and put all the police into a state of ferment.”
Lord Chiltern declared himself to be heartily sick of the whole subject; and Mr. Grey, who was a very just man, suggested that the evidence, as yet, against anybody, was very slight.
“Of course it’s slight,” said Lady Glencora. “If it were more than slight, it would be just like any other robbery, and there would be nothing in it.”
On the same morning Mrs. Bonteen received a second letter from her friend Mrs. Rutter. The Tewett marriage had been certainly broken off. Sir Griffin had been very violent, misbehaving himself grossly in Mrs. Carbuncle’s house, and Miss Roanoke had declared that under no circumstances would she ever speak to him again. It was Mrs. Rutter’s opinion, however, that this violence had been “put on” by Sir Griffin, who was desirous of escaping from the marriage because of the affair of the diamonds.
“He’s very much bound up with Lord George,” said Mrs. Rutter, “and is afraid that he may be implicated.”
“In my opinion he’s quite right,” said Lord Fawn.
All these matters were told to the duke by Lady Glencora and Madame Goesler in the recesses of his grace’s private room; for the duke was now infirm, and did not dine in company unless the day was very auspicious to him. But in the evening he would creep into the drawing-room, and on this occasion he had a word to say about the Eustace diamonds to every one in the room. It was admitted by them all that the robbery had been a godsend in the way of amusing the duke.
“Wouldn’t have her boxes searched, you know,” said the duke. “That looks uncommonly suspicious. Perhaps, Lady Chiltern, we shall hear tomorrow morning something more about it.”
“Poor dear duke,” said Lady Chiltern to her husband.
“Doting old idiot!” he replied.
When such a man as Barrington Erle undertakes to send information to such a correspondent as Lady Glencora in reference to such a matter as Lady Eustace’s diamonds, he is bound to be full rather than accurate. We may say, indeed, that perfect accuracy would be detrimental rather than otherwise, and would tend to disperse that feeling of mystery which is so gratifying. No suggestion had in truth been made to Lord George de Bruce Carruthers as to the searching of his lordship’s boxes and desks. That very eminent detective officer, Mr. Bunfit, had, however, called upon Lord George more than once, and Lord George had declared very plainly that he did not like it.
“If you’ll have the kindness to explain to me what it is you want, I’ll be much obliged to you,” Lord George had said to Mr. Bunfit.
“Well, my lord,” said Bunfit, “what we want is these diamonds.”
“Do you believe that I’ve got them?”
“A man in my situation, my lord, never believes anything. “We has to suspect, but we never believes.”
“You suspect that I stole them?”
“No, my lord; I didn’t say that. But things are very queer; aren’t they?” The immediate object of Mr. Bunfit’s visit on this morning had been to ascertain from Lord George whether it was true that his lordship had been with Messrs. Harter & Benjamin, the jewellers, on the morning after his arrival in town. No one from the police had as yet seen either Harter or Benjamin in connection with this robbery; but it may not be too much to say that the argus eyes of Major Mackintosh were upon Messrs. Harter & Benjamin’s whole establishment, and it was believed that if the jewels were in London they were locked up in some box within that house. It was thought more than probable by Major Mackintosh and his myrmidons that the jewels were already at Hamburg; and by this time, as the major had explained to Mr. Camperdown, every one of them might have been reset, or even recut. But it was known that Lord George had been at the house of Messrs. Harter & Benjamin early on the morning after his return to town, and the ingenuous Mr. Bunfit, who, by reason of his situation, never believed anything and only suspected, had expressed a very strong opinion to Major Mackintosh that the necklace had in truth been transferred to the Jews on that morning. That there was nothing “too hot or too heavy” for Messrs. Harter & Benjamin, was quite a creed with the police of the west end of London. Might it not be well to ask Lord George what he had to say about the visit? Should Lord George deny the visit, such denial would go far to confirm Mr. Bunfit. The question was asked, and Lord George did not deny the visit.
“Unfortunately they hold acceptances of mine,” said Lord George, “and I am often there.”
“We know as they have your lordship’s name to paper,” said Mr. Bunfit, thanking Lord George, however, for his courtesy. It may be understood that all this would be unpleasant to Lord George, and that he should be indignant almost to madness.
But Mr. Erle’s information, though certainly defective in regard to Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, had been more correct when he spoke of the lady. An interview that was very terrible to poor Lizzie did take place between her and Mr. Bunfit in Mrs. Carbuncle’s house on Tuesday the 3Oth of January. There had been many interviews between Lizzie and various members of the police force in reference to the diamonds, but the questions put to her had always been asked on the supposition that she might have mislaid the necklace. Was it not possible that she might have thought that she locked it up, but have omitted to place it in the box? As long as these questions had reference to a possible oversight in Scotland, to some carelessness which she might have committed on the night before she left her home, Lizzie upon the whole seemed rather to like the idea. It certainly was possible. She believed thoroughly that the diamonds had been locked by her in the box, but she acknowledged that it might be the case that they had been left on one side. This had happened when the police first began to suspect that the necklace had not been in the box when it was carried out of the Carlisle hotel, but before it had occurred to them that Lord George had been concerned in the robbery, and possibly Lady Eustace herself. Men had been sent down from London, of course at considerable expense, and Portray Castle had been searched, with the consent of its owner, from the weathercock to the foundation-stone, much to the consternation of Miss Macnulty and to the delight of Andy Gowran. No trace of the diamonds was found, and Lizzie had so far fraternised with the police. But when Mr. Bunfit called upon her, perhaps for the fifth or sixth time, and suggested that he should be allowed, with the assistance of the female whom he had left behind him in the hall, to search all her ladyship’s boxes, drawers, presses, and receptacles in London, the thing took a very different aspect. “You see, my lady,” said Mr. Bunfit, excusing the peculiar nature of his request, “it may have got anywhere among your ladyship’s things unbeknownst.” Lady Eustace and Mrs. Carbuncle were at the time sitting together, and Mrs. Carbuncle was the first to protest. If Mr. Bunfit thought that he was going to search her things, Mr. Bunfit was very much mistaken. What she had suffered about this necklace no man or woman knew, and she meant that there should be an end of it. It was her opinion that the police should have discovered every stone of it days and days ago. At any rate her house was her own, and she gave Mr. Bunfit to understand that his repeated visits were not agreeable to her. But when Mr. Bunfit, without showing the slightest displeasure at the evil things said of him, suggested that the search should be confined to the rooms used exclusively by Lady Eustace, Mrs. Carbuncle absolutely changed her views, and recommended that he should be allowed to have his way.
At that moment the condition of poor Lizzie Eustace was very sad. He who recounts these details has scorned to have a secret between himself and his readers. The diamonds were at this moment locked up within Lizzie’s desk. For the last three weeks they had been there — if it may not be more truly said that they were lying heavily on her heart. For three weeks had her mind with constant stretch been working on that point — whither should she take the diamonds, and what should she do with them? A certain very wonderful strength she did possess, or she could not have endured the weight of so terrible an anxiety; but from day to day the thing became worse and worse with her, as gradually she perceived that suspicion was attached to herself. Should she confide the secret to Lord George, or to Mrs. Carbuncle, or to Frank Greystock? She thought she could have borne it all if only some one would have borne it with her. But when the moments came in which such confidence might be made, her courage failed her. Lord George she saw frequently; but he was unsympathetic and almost rough with her. She knew that he also was suspected, and she was almost disposed to think that he had planned the robbery. If it were so, if the robbery had been his handiwork, it was not singular that he should be unsympathetic with the owner and probable holder of the prey which he had missed. Nevertheless Lizzie thought that if he would have been soft with her, like a dear, good, genuine Corsair, for half an hour, she would have told him all, and placed the necklace in his hands. And there were moments in which she almost resolved to tell her secret to Mrs. Carbuncle. She had stolen nothing; so she averred to herself. She had intended only to defend and save her own property. Even the lie that she had told, and the telling of which was continued from day to day, had in a measure been forced upon her by circumstances. She thought that Mrs. Carbuncle would sympathise with her in that feeling which had prevented her from speaking the truth when first the fact of the robbery was made known to herself in her own bedroom. Mrs. Carbuncle was a lady who told many lies, as Lizzie well knew, and surely could not be horrified at a lie told in such circumstances. But it was not in Lizzie’s nature to trust a woman. Mrs. Carbuncle would tell Lord George, and that would destroy everything. When she thought of confiding everything to her cousin, it was always in his absence. The idea became dreadful to her as soon as he was present. She could not dare to own to him that she had sworn falsely to the magistrate at Carlisle. And so the burden had to be borne, increasing every hour in weight, and the poor creature’s back was not broad enough to bear it. She thought of the necklace every waking minute, and dreamed of it when she slept. She could not keep herself from unlocking her desk and looking at it twenty times a day, although she knew the peril of such nervous solicitude. If she could only rid herself of it altogether, she was sure now that she would do so. She would throw it into the ocean fathoms deep, if only she could find herself alone upon the ocean. But she felt that, let her go where she might, she would be watched. She might declare tomorrow her intention of going to Ireland, or, for that matter, to America. But, were she to do so, some horrid policeman would be on her track. The iron box had been a terrible nuisance to her; but the iron box had been as nothing compared to the necklace locked up in her desk. From day to day she meditated a plan of taking the thing out into the streets and dropping it in the dark; but she was sure that were she to do so some one would have watched her while she dropped it. She was unwilling to trust her old friend Mr. Benjamin; but in these days her favourite scheme was to offer the diamonds for sale to him at some very low price. If he would help her, they might surely be got out of their present hiding-place into his hands. Any man would be powerful to help if there were any man whom she could trust. In furtherance of this scheme she went so far as to break a brooch — a favourite brooch of her own — in order that she might have an excuse for calling at the jewellers’. But even this she postponed from day to day. Circumstances, as they had occurred, had taught her to believe that the police could not insist on breaking open her desk unless some evidence could be brought against her. There was no evidence, and her desk was so far safe. But the same circumstances had made her understand that she was already suspected of some intrigue with reference to the diamonds — though of what she was suspected she did not clearly perceive. As far as she could divine the thoughts of her enemies, they did not seem to suppose that the diamonds were in her possession. It seemed to be believed by those enemies that they had passed into the hands of Lord George. As long as her enemies were on a scent so false, might it not be best that she should remain quiet?
But all the ingenuity, the concentrated force, and trained experience of the police of London would surely be too great and powerful for her in the long run. She could not hope to keep her secret and the diamonds till they should acknowledge themselves to be baffled. And then she was aware of a morbid desire on her own part to tell the secret — of a desire that amounted almost to a disease. It would soon burst her bosom open, unless she could share her knowledge with some one. And yet, as she thought of it all, she told herself that she had no friend so fast and true as to justify such confidence. She was ill with anxiety, and — worse than that — Mrs. Carbuncle knew that she was ill. It was acknowledged between them that this affair of the necklace was so terrible as to make a woman ill. Mrs. Carbuncle at present had been gracious enough to admit so much as that. But might it not be probable that Mrs. Carbuncle would come to suspect that she did not know the whole secret? Mrs. Carbuncle had already, on more than one occasion, said a little word or two which had been unpleasant. Such was Lizzie’s condition when Mr. Bunfit came, with his authoritative request to be allowed to inspect Lizzie’s boxes — and when Mrs. Carbuncle, having secured her own privacy, expressed her opinion that Mr. Bunfit should be allowed to do as he desired.
As soon as the words were out of Mrs. Carbuncle’s mouth — those ill-natured words in which she expressed her assent to Mr. Bunfit’s proposition that a search should be made after the diamonds among all the possessions of Lady Eustace which were now lodged in her own house — poor Lizzie’s courage deserted her entirely. She had been very courageous; for, though her powers of endurance had sometimes nearly deserted her, though her heart had often failed her, still she had gone on and had endured and been silent. To endure and to be silent in her position did require great courage. She was all alone in her misery, and could see no way out of it. The diamonds were heavy as a load of lead within her bosom. And yet she had persevered. Now, as she heard Mrs. Carbuncle’s words, her courage failed her. There came some obstruction in her throat, so that she could not speak. She felt as though her heart were breaking. She put out both her hands and could not draw them back again. She knew that she was betraying herself by her weakness. She could just hear the man explaining that the search was merely a thing of ceremony — just to satisfy everybody that there was no mistake — and then she fainted. So far, Barrington Erle was correct in the information given by him to Lady Glencora. She pressed one hand against her heart, gasped for breath, and then fell back upon the sofa. Perhaps she could have done nothing better. Had the fainting been counterfeit, the measure would have shown ability. But the fainting was altogether true. Mrs. Carbuncle first, and then Mr. Bunfit, hurried from their seats to help her. To neither of them did it occur for a moment that the fit was false.
“The whole thing has been too much for her,” said Mrs. Carbuncle severely, ringing the bell at the same time for further aid.
“No doubt — mum; no doubt. We has to see a deal of this sort of thing. Just a little air, if you please, mum — and as much water as’d go to christen a babby. That’s always best, mum.”
“If you’ll have the kindness to stand on one side,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, as she stretched Lizzie on the sofa.
“Certainly, mum,” said Bunfit, standing erect by the wall, but not showing the slightest disposition to leave the room.
“You had better go,” said Mrs. Carbuncle — loudly and very severely.
“I’ll just stay and see her come to, mum. I won’t do her a morsel of harm, mum. Sometimes they faints at the very first sight of such as we; but we has to bear it. A little more air, if you could, mum — and just dash the water on in drops like. They feels a drop more than they would a bucket-full — and then when they comes to they hasn’t to change theirselves.”
Bunfit’s advice, founded on much experience, was good, and Lizzie gradually came to herself and opened her eyes. She immediately clutched at her breast, feeling for her key. She found it unmoved, but before her finger had recognised the touch, her quick mind had told her how wrong the movement had been. It had been lost upon Mrs. Carbuncle, but not on Mr. Bunfit. He did not at once think that she had the diamonds in her desk; but he felt almost sure that there was something in her possession — probably some document — which, if found, would place him on the track of the diamonds. But he could not compel a search. “Your ladyship’ll soon be better,” said Bunfit graciously. Lizzie endeavoured to smile as she expressed her assent to this proposition. “As I was saying to the elder lady ——”
“Saying to who, sir?” exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle, rising up in wrath. “Elder indeed!”
“As I was venturing to explain, these fits of fainting come often in our way. Thieves, mum — that is, the regulars — don’t mind us a bit, and the women is more hardeneder than the men; but when we has to speak to a lady, it is so often that she goes off like that! I’ve known’m do it just at being looked at.”
“Don’t you think, sir, that you’d better leave us now?” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Indeed you had,” said Lizzie. “I’m fit for nothing just at present.”
“We won’t disturb your ladyship the least in life,” said Mr. Bunfit, “if you’ll only just let us have your keys. Your servant can be with us, and we won’t move one tittle of anything.” But Lizzie, though she was still suffering that ineffable sickness which always accompanies and follows a real fainting-fit, would not surrender her keys. Already had an excuse for not doing so occurred to her. But for a while she seemed to hesitate. “I don’t demand it, Lady Eustace,” said Mr. Bunfit, “but if you’ll allow me to say so, I do think it will look better for your ladyship.”
“I can take no step without consulting my cousin, Mr. Greystock,” said Lizzie; and having thought of this she adhered to it. The detective supplied her with many reasons for giving up her keys, alleging that it would do no harm, and that her refusal would create infinite suspicions. But Lizzie had formed her answer and stuck to it. She always consulted her cousin, and always acted upon his advice. He had already cautioned her not to take any steps without his sanction. She would do nothing till he consented. If Mr. Bunfit would see Mr. Greystock, and if Mr. Greystock would come to her and tell her to submit — she would submit. Ill as she was, she could be obstinate, and Bunfit left the house without having been able to finger that key which he felt sure that Lady Eustace carried somewhere on her person.
As he walked back to his own quarters in Scotland Yard, Bunfit was by no means dissatisfied with his morning’s work. He had not expected to find anything with Lady Eustace, and, when she fainted, had not hoped to be allowed to search. But he was now sure that her ladyship was possessed, at any rate, of some guilty knowledge. Bunfit was one of those who, almost from the first, had believed that the box was empty when taken out of the hotel. “Stones like them must turn up more or less,” was Bunfit’s great argument. That the police should already have found the stones themselves was not perhaps probable; but had any ordinary thieves had them in their hands, they could not have been passed on without leaving a trace behind them. It was his opinion that the box had been opened and the door cut by the instrumentality and concurrence of Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, with the assistance of some one well-skilled mechanical thief. Nothing could be made out of the tall footman. Indeed, the tall footman had already been set at liberty, although he was known to have evil associates; and the tall footman was now loud in demanding compensation for the injury done to him. Many believed that the tall footman had been concerned in the matter, many, that is, among the experienced craftsmen of the police force. Bunfit thought otherwise. Bunfit believed that the diamonds were now either in the possession of Lord George or of Harter & Benjamin, that they had been handed over to Lord George to save them from Messrs. Camperdown and the lawsuit, and that Lord George and the lady were lovers. The lady’s conduct at their last interview, her fit of fainting, and her clutching for the key, all confirmed Bunfit in his opinion. But unfortunately for Bunfit he was almost alone in his opinion. There were men in the force, high in their profession as detectives, who avowed that certainly two very experienced and well-known thieves had been concerned in the business. That a certain Mr. Smiler had been there, a gentleman for whom the whole police of London entertained a feeling which approached to veneration, and that most diminutive of full-grown thieves, Billy Cann, most diminutive but at the same time most expert, was not doubted by some minds which were apt to doubt till conviction had become certainty. The traveller who had left the Scotch train at Dumfries had been a very small man, and it was a known fact that Mr. Smiler had left London by train from the Euston Square station, on the day before that on which Lizzie and her party had reached Carlisle. If it were so, if Mr. Smiler and Billy Cann had both been at work at the hotel, then — so argued they who opposed the Bunfit theory — it was hardly conceivable that the robbery should have been arranged by Lord George. According to the Bunfit theory the only thing needed by the conspirators had been that the diamonds should be handed over by Lady Eustace to Lord George in such a way as to escape suspicion that such transfer had been made. This might have been done with very little trouble, by simply leaving the box empty, with the key in it. The door of the bedroom had been opened by skilful professional men, and the box had been forced by the use of tools which none but professional gentlemen would possess. Was it probable that Lord George would have committed himself with such men, and incurred the very heavy expense of paying for their services, when he was, according to the Bunfit theory, able to get at the diamonds without any such trouble, danger, and expenditure? There was a young detective in the force, very clever — almost too clever, and certainly a little too fast — Gager by name, who declared that the Bunfit theory “warn’t on the cards.” According to Gager’s information, Smiler was at this moment a brokenhearted man, ranging between mad indignation and suicidal despondency, because he had been treated with treachery in some direction. Mr. Gager was as fully convinced as Bunfit that the diamonds had not been in the box. There was bitter, raging, heart-breaking disappointment about the diamonds in more quarters than one. That there had been a double robbery Gager was quite sure; or rather a robbery in which two sets of thieves had been concerned, and in which one set had been duped by the other set. In this affair Mr. Smiler and poor little Billy Cann had been the dupes. So far Gager’s mind had arrived at certainty. But then how had they been duped, and who had duped them? And who had employed them? Such a robbery would hardly have been arranged and executed except on commission. Even Mr. Smiler would not have burdened himself with such diamonds without knowing what to do with them, and what he should get for them. That they were intended ultimately for the hands of Messrs. Harter & Benjamin, Gager almost believed. And Gager was inclined to think that Messrs. Harter & Benjamin — or rather Mr. Benjamin, for Mr. Harter himself was almost too old for work requiring so very great mental activity — that Mr. Benjamin, fearing the honesty of his executive officer Mr. Smiler, had been splendidly treacherous to his subordinate. Gager had not quite completed his theory; but he was very firm on one great point, that the thieves at Carlisle had been genuine thieves, thinking that they were stealing the diamonds, and finding their mistake out when the box had been opened by them under the bridge. “Who have ’em, then?” asked Bunfit of his younger brother, in a disparaging whisper.
“Well; yes; who ‘ave ’em? It’s easy to say, who ‘ave ’em? Suppose ‘e ‘ave ’em.” The “he” alluded to by Gager was Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. “But laws, Bunfit, they’re gone — weeks ago. You know that, Bunfit.” This had occurred before the intended search among poor Lizzie’s boxes, but Bunfit’s theory had not been shaken. Bunfit could see all round his own theory. It was a whole, and the motives as well as the operations of the persons concerned were explained by it. But the Gager theory only went to show what had not been done, and offered no explanation of the accomplished scheme. Then Bunfit went a little further in his theory, not disdaining to accept something from Gager. Perhaps Lord George had engaged these men, and had afterwards found it practicable to get the diamonds without their assistance. On one great point all concerned in the inquiry were in unison — that the diamonds had not been in the box when it was carried out of the bedroom at Carlisle. The great point of difference consisted in this, that whereas Gager was sure that the robbery when committed had been genuine, Bunfit was of opinion that the box had been first opened, and then taken out of the hotel in order that the police might be put on a wrong track.
The matter was becoming very important. Two or three of the leading newspapers had first hinted at and then openly condemned the incompetence and slowness of the police. Such censure, as we all know, is very common, and in nine cases out of ten it is unjust. They who write it probably know but little of the circumstances; and, in speaking of a failure here and a failure there, make no reference to the numerous successes, which are so customary as to partake of the nature of routine. It is the same in regard to all public matters; army matters, navy matters, poor-law matters, and post-office matters. Day after day, and almost every day, one meets censure which is felt to be unjust; but the general result of all this injustice is increased efficiency. The coach does go the faster because of the whip in the coachman’s hand, though the horse driven may never have deserved the thong. In this matter of the Eustace diamonds the police had been very active; but they had been unsuccessful and had consequently been abused. The robbery was now more than three weeks old. Property to the amount of ten thousand pounds had been abstracted, and as yet the police had not even formed an assured opinion on the subject! Had the same thing occurred in New York or Paris every diamond would by this time have been traced. Such were the assertions made, and the police were instigated to new exertions. Bunfit would have jeopardised his right hand, and Gager his life, to get at the secret. Even Major Mackintosh was anxious.
The facts of the claim made by Mr. Camperdown, and of the bill which had been filed in Chancery for the recovery of the diamonds, were of course widely known, and added much to the general interest and complexity. It was averred that Mr. Camperdown’s determination to get the diamonds had been very energetic, and Lady Eustace’s determination to keep them equally so. Wonderful stories were told of Lizzie’s courage, energy, and resolution. There was hardly a lawyer of repute but took up the question, and had an opinion as to Lizzie’s right to the necklace. The Attorney and Solicitor-General were dead against her, asserting that the diamonds certainly did not pass to her under the will, and could not have become hers by gift. But they were members of a Liberal government, and of course Antilizzieite. Gentlemen who were equal to them in learning, who had held offices equally high, were distinctly of a different opinion. Lady Eustace might probably claim the jewels as paraphernalia properly appertaining to her rank; in which claim the bestowal of them by her husband would no doubt assist her. And to these gentlemen — who were Lizzieites and of course Conservatives in politics — it was by no means clear that the diamonds did not pass to her by will. If it could be shown that the diamonds had been lately kept in Scotland, the ex-Attorney-General thought that they would so pass. All which questions, now that the jewels had been lost, were discussed openly, and added greatly to the anxiety of the police. Both Lizzieites and Antilizzieites were disposed to think that Lizzie was very clever.
Frank Greystock in these days took up his cousin’s part altogether in good faith. He entertained not the slightest suspicion that she was deceiving him in regard to the diamonds. That the robbery had been a bona fide robbery, and that Lizzie had lost her treasure, was to him beyond doubt. He had gradually convinced himself that Mr. Camperdown was wrong in his claim, and was strongly of opinion that Lord Fawn had disgraced himself by his conduct to the lady. When he now heard, as he did hear, that some undefined suspicion was attached to his cousin, and when he heard also — as unfortunately he did hear — that Lord Fawn had encouraged that suspicion, he was very irate, and said grievous things of Lord Fawn. It seemed to him to be the extremity of cruelty that suspicion should be attached to his cousin because she had been robbed of her jewels. He was among those who were most severe in their denunciation of the police — and was the more so, because he had heard it asserted that the necklace had not in truth been stolen. He busied himself very much in the matter, and even interrogated John Eustace as to his intentions. “My dear fellow,” said Eustace, “if you hated those diamonds as much as I do, you would never mention them again.” Greystock declared that this expression of aversion to the subject might be all very well for Mr. Eustace, but that he found himself bound to defend his cousin. “You cannot defend her against me,” said Eustace, “for I do not attack her. I have never said a word against her. I went down to Portray when she asked me. As far as I am concerned she is perfectly welcome to wear the necklace, if she can get it back again. I will not make or meddle in the matter one way or the other.” Frank, after that, went to Mr. Camperdown, but he could get no satisfaction from the attorney. Mr. Camperdown would say only that he had a duty to do, and that he must do it. On the matter of the robbery he refused to give an opinion. That was in the hands of the police. Should the diamonds be recovered, he would, of course, claim them on behalf of the estate. In his opinion, whether the diamonds were recovered or not, Lady Eustace was responsible to the estate for their value. In opposition, first to the entreaties, and then to the demands, of her late husband’s family, she had insisted on absurdly carrying about with her an enormous amount of property which did not belong to her. Mr. Camperdown opined that she must pay for the lost diamonds out of her jointure. Frank, in a huff, declared that, as far as he could see, the diamonds belonged to his cousin; in answer to which Mr. Camperdown suggested that the question was one for the decision of the Vice-Chancellor. Frank Greystock found that he could do nothing with Mr. Camperdown, and felt that he could wreak his vengeance only on Lord Fawn.
Bunfit, when he returned from Mrs. Carbuncle’s house to Scotland Yard, had an interview with Major Mackintosh. “Well, Bunfit, have you seen the lady?”
“Yes, I did see her, sir.”
“And what came of it?”
“She fainted away, sir — just as they always do.”
“There was no search, I suppose?”
“No, sir; no search. She wouldn’t have it, unless her cousin. Mr. Greystock, permitted.”
“I didn’t think she would.”
“Nor yet didn’t I, sir. But I’ll tell you what it is, major. She knows all about it.”
“You think she does, Bunfit?”
“She does, sir; and she’s got something locked up somewhere in that house as’d elucidate the whole of this aggravating mystery, if only we could get at it, Major ——”
“Well, Bunfit.”
“I ain’t noways sure as she ain’t got them very diamonds themselves locked up, or, perhaps, tied round her person.”
“Neither am I sure that she has not,” said the major.
“The robbery at Carlisle was no robbery,” continued Bunfit. “It was a got-up plant, and about the best as I ever knowed. It’s my mind that it was a got-up plant between her ladyship and his lordship; and either the one or the other is just keeping the diamonds till it’s safe to take ’em into the market.”
During all this time Lucinda Roanoke was engaged to marry Sir Griffin Tewett, and the lover was an occasional visitor in Hertford Street. Mrs. Carbuncle was as anxious as ever that the marriage should be celebrated on the appointed day, and though there had been repeated quarrels, nothing had as yet taken place to make her despond. Sir Griffin would make some offensive speech. Lucinda would tell him that she had no desire ever to see him again, and then the baronet, usually under the instigation of Lord George, would make some awkward apology. Mrs. Carbuncle, whose life at this period was not a pleasant one, would behave on such occasions with great patience, and sometimes with great courage. Lizzie, who in her present emergency could not bear the idea of losing the assistance of any friend, was soft and graceful, and even gracious, to the bear. The bear himself certainly seemed to desire the marriage, though he would so often give offence which made any prospect of a marriage almost impossible. But with Sir Griffin, when the prize seemed to be lost, it again became valuable. He would talk about his passionate love to Mrs. Carbuncle and to Lizzie, and then, when things had been made straight for him, he would insult them, and neglect Lucinda. To Lucinda herself, however, he would rarely dare to say such words as he used daily to the other two ladies in the house. What could have been the man’s own idea of his future married life, how can any reader be made to understand, or any writer adequately describe? He must have known that the woman despised him, and hated him. In the very bottom of his heart he feared her. He had no idea of other pleasures from her society than what might arise to him from the pride of having married a beautiful woman. Had she shown the slightest fondness for him, the slightest fear that she might lose him, the slightest feeling that she had won a valuable prize in getting him, he would have scorned her, and jilted her without the slightest remorse. But the scorn came from her, and it beat him down. “Yes, you hate me, and would fain be rid of me; but you have said that you will be my wife, and you cannot now escape me.” Sir Griffin did not exactly speak such words as these, but he acted them. Lucinda would bear his presence, sitting apart from him, silent, imperious, but very beautiful. People said that she became more handsome from day to day, and she did so, in spite of her agony. Hers was a face which could stand such condition of the heart without fading or sinking under it. She did not weep, or lose her colour, or become thin. The pretty softness of a girl, delicate feminine weakness, or laughing eyes and pouting lips, no one expected from her. Sir Griffin, in the early days of their acquaintance, had found her to be a woman with a character for beauty, and she was now more beautiful than ever. He probably thought that he loved her; but, at any rate, he was determined that he would marry her.
He had expressed himself more than once as very angry about this affair of the jewels. He had told Mrs. Carbuncle that her inmate, Lady Eustace, was suspected by the police, and that it might be well that Lady Eustace should be — be made to go, in fact. But it did not suit Mrs. Carbuncle that Lady Eustace should be made to go; nor did it suit Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. Lord George, at Mrs. Carbuncle’s instance, had snubbed Sir Griffin more than once, and then it came to pass that he was snubbed yet again more violently than before. He was at the house in Hertford Street on the day of Mr. Bunfit’s visit, some hours after Mr. Bunfit was gone, when Lizzie was still lying on her bed up-stairs, nearly beaten by the great danger which had oppressed her. He was told of Mr. Bunfit’s visit, and then again said that he thought that the continued residence of Lady Eustace beneath that roof was a misfortune. “Would you wish us to turn her out because her necklace has been stolen?” asked Mrs. Carbuncle.
“People say very queer things,” said Sir Griffin.
“So they do, Sir Griffin,” continued Mrs. Carbuncle. “They say such queer things that I can hardly understand that they should be allowed to say them. I am told that the police absolutely suggest that Lord George stole the diamonds.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“No doubt, Sir Griffin. And so is the other nonsense. Do you mean to tell us that you believe that Lady Eustace stole her own diamonds?”
“I don’t see the use of having her here. Situated as I am, I have a right to object to it.”
“Situated as you are, Sir Griffin!” said Lucinda.
“Well, yes, of course; if we are to be married, I cannot but think a good deal of the persons you stay with.”
“You were very glad to stay yourself with Lady Eustace at Portray,” said Lucinda.
“I went there to follow you,” said Sir Griffin gallantly.
“I wish with all my heart you had stayed away,” said Lucinda. At that moment Lord George was shown into the room, and Miss Roanoke continued speaking, determined that Lord George should know how the bear was conducting himself. “Sir Griffin is saying that my aunt ought to turn Lady Eustace out of the house.”
“Not quite that,” said Sir Griffin with an attempt at laughter.
“Quite that,” said Lucinda. “I don’t suppose that he suspects poor Lady Eustace, but he thinks that my aunt’s friend should be like Caesar’s wife, above the suspicion of others.”
“If you would mind your own business, Tewett,” said Lord George, “it would be a deal better for us all. I wonder Mrs. Carbuncle does not turn you out of the room for making such a proposition here. If it were my room, I would.”
“I suppose I can say what I please to Mrs. Carbuncle? Miss Roanoke is not going to be your wife.”
“It is my belief that Miss Roanoke will be nobody’s wife, at any rate, for the present,” said that young lady; upon which Sir Griffin left the room, muttering some words which might have been, perhaps, intended for an adieu. Immediately after this Lizzie came in, moving slowly, but without a sound, like a ghost, with pale cheeks and dishevelled hair, and that weary, worn look of illness which was become customary with her. She greeted Lord George with a faint attempt at a smile, and seated herself in a corner of a sofa. She asked whether he had been told the story of the proposed search, and then bade her friend Mrs. Carbuncle describe the scene.
“If it goes on like this it will kill me,” said Lizzie.
“They are treating me in precisely the same way,” said Lord George.
“But think of your strength and of my weakness, Lord George.”
“By heavens, I don’t know,” said Lord George. “In this matter your weakness is stronger than any strength of mine. I never was so cut up in my life. It was a good joke when we talked of the suspicions of that fellow at Carlisle as we came up by the railway, but it is no joke now. I’ve had men with me, almost asking to search among my things.”
“They have quite asked me,” said Lizzie piteously.
“You; yes. But there’s some reason in that. These infernal diamonds did belong to you, or, at any rate you had them. You are the last person known to have seen them. Even if you had them still, you’d only have what you call your own.” Lizzie looked at him with all her eyes and listened to him with all her ears. “But what the mischief can I have had to do with them?”
“It’s very hard upon you,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Unless I stole them,” continued Lord George.
“Which is so absurd, you know,” said Lizzie.
“That a pig-headed provincial fool should have taken me for a midnight thief, did not disturb me much. I don’t think I am very easily annoyed by what other people think of me. But these fellows, I suppose, were sent here by the head of the metropolitan police; and everybody knows that they have been sent. Because I was civil enough to you women to look after you coming up to town, and because one of you was careless enough to lose her jewels, I— I am to be talked about all over London as the man who took them!” This was not spoken with much courtesy to the ladies present. Lord George had dropped that customary chivalry of manner which, in ordinary life, makes it to be quite out of the question that a man shall be uncivil to a woman. He had escaped from conventional usage into rough, truthful speech, under stress from the extremity of the hardship to which he had been subjected. And the women understood it and appreciated it, and liked it rather than otherwise. To Lizzie it seemed fitting that a Corsair so circumstanced should be as uncivil as he pleased; and Mrs. Carbuncle had long been accustomed to her friend’s moods.
“They can’t really think it,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Somebody thinks it. I am told that your particular friend, Lord Fawn”— this he said specially addressing Lizzie —“has expressed a strong opinion that I carry about the necklace always in my pocket. I trust to have the opportunity of wringing his neck some day.”
“I do so wish you would,” said Lizzie.
“I shall not lose a chance if I can get it. Before all this occurred, I should have said of myself that nothing of the kind could put me out. I don’t think there is a man in the world cares less what people say of him than I do. I am as indifferent to ordinary tittle-tattle as a rhinoceros. But, by George, when it comes to stealing ten thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds, and the delicate attentions of all the metropolitan police, one begins to feel that one is vulnerable. When I get up in the morning, I half feel that I shall be locked up before night, and I can see in the eyes of every man I meet that he takes me for the prince of burglars!”
“And it is all my fault,” said Lizzie.
“I wish the diamonds had been thrown into the sea,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“What do you think about them yourself?” asked Lucinda.
“I don’t know what to think. I’m at a dead loss. You know that man Mr. Benjamin, Lady Eustace?” Lizzie, with a little start, answered that she did, that she had had dealings with him before her marriage, and had once owed him two or three hundred pounds. As the man’s name had been mentioned, she thought it better to own as much. “So he tells me. Now, in all London, I don’t suppose there is a greater rascal than Benjamin.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Lizzie.
“But I did; and with that rascal I have had money dealings for the last six or seven years. He has cashed bills for me, and has my name to bills now — and Sir Griffin’s too. I’m half inclined to think that he has got the diamonds.”
“Do you indeed?” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Mr. Benjamin!” said Lizzie.
“And he returns the compliment.”
“How does he return it?” asked Mrs. Carbuncle.
“He either thinks that I’ve got ’em or he wants to make me believe that he thinks so. He hasn’t dared to say it — but that’s his intention. Such an opinion from such a man on such a subject would be quite a compliment. And I feel it. But yet it troubles me. You know that greasy, Israelitish smile of his, Lady Eustace.” Lizzie nodded her head and tried to smile. “When I asked him yesterday about the diamonds, he leered at me and rubbed his hands. ‘It’s a pretty little game — ain’t it, Lord George?’ he said. I told him that I thought it a very bad game, and that I hoped the police would have the thief and the necklace soon. ‘It’s been managed a deal too well for that, Lord George — don’t you think so?’” Lord George mimicked the Jew as he repeated the words, and the ladies, of course, laughed. But poor Lizzie’s attempt at laughter was very sorry. “I told him to his face that I thought he had them among his treasures. ‘No, no, no, Lord George,’ he said, and seemed quite to enjoy the joke. If he’s got them himself, he can’t think that I have them; but if he has not, I don’t doubt but he believes that I have. And I’ll tell you another person who suspects me.”
“What fools they are!” said Lizzie.
“I don’t know how that may be. Sir Griffin, Lucinda, isn’t at all sure but what I have them in my pocket.”
“I can believe anything of him,” said Lucinda.
“And it seems he can believe anything of me. I shall begin to think soon that I did take them, myself — or, at any rate, that I ought to have done so. I wonder what you three women think of it. If you do think I’ve got ’em, don’t scruple to say so. I’m quite used to it, and it won’t hurt me any further.” The ladies again laughed. “You must have your suspicions,” continued he.
“I suppose some of the London thieves did get them,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“The police say the box was empty,” said Lord George.
“How can the police know?” asked Lucinda. “They weren’t there to see. Of course the thieves would say that they didn’t take them.”
“What do you think, Lady Eustace?”
“I don’t know what to think. Perhaps Mr. Camperdown did it.”
“Or the Lord Chancellor,” said Lord George. “One is just as likely as the other. I wish I could get at what you really think. The whole thing would be so complete if all you three suspected me. I can’t get out of it all by going to Paris or Kamtchatka, as I should have half a dozen detectives on my heels wherever I went. I must brazen it out here; and the worst of it is, that I feel that a look of guilt is creeping over me. I have a sort of conviction growing upon me that I shall be taken up and tried, and that a jury will find me guilty. I dream about it; and if — as is probable — it drives me mad, I’m sure that I shall accuse myself in my madness. There’s a fascination about it that I can’t explain or escape. I go on thinking how I would have done it if I did do it. I spend hours in calculating how much I would have realised, and where I would have found my market. I couldn’t keep myself from asking Benjamin the other day how much they would be worth to him.”
“What did he say?” asked Lizzie, who sat gazing upon the Corsair, and who was now herself fascinated. Lord George was walking about the room, then sitting for a moment in one chair and again in another, and after a while leaning on the mantelpiece. In his speaking he addressed himself almost exclusively to Lizzie, who could not keep her eyes from his.
“He grinned greasily,” said the Corsair, “and told me they had already been offered to him once before by you.”
“That’s false!” said Lizzie.
“Very likely. And then he said that no doubt they’d fall into his hands some day. ‘Wouldn’t it be a game, Lord George,’ he said, ‘if, after all, they should be no more than paste?’ That made me think he had got them, and that he’d get paste diamonds put into the same setting — and then give them up with some story of his own making. ‘You’d know whether they were paste or not, wouldn’t you, Lord George?’ he asked.” The Corsair, as he repeated Mr. Benjamin’s words, imitated the Jew’s manner so well that he made Lizzie shudder. “While I was there, a detective named Gager came in.”
“The same man who came here, perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I think not. He seemed to be quite intimate with Mr. Benjamin, and went on at once about the diamonds. Benjamin said that they’d made their way over to Paris, and that he’d heard of them. I found myself getting quite intimate with Mr. Gager, who seemed hardly to scruple at showing that he thought that Benjamin and I were confederates. Mr. Camperdown has offered four hundred pounds reward for the jewels, to be paid on their surrender to the hands of Mr. Garnett, the jeweller. Gager declared that, if any ordinary thief had them, they would be given up at once for that sum.”
“That’s true, I suppose,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“How would the ordinary thief get his money without being detected? Who would dare to walk into Garnett’s shop with the diamonds in his hands and ask for the four hundred pounds? Besides, they have been sold to some one, and, as I believe, to my dear friend, Mr. Benjamin. ‘I suppose you ain’t a-going anywhere just at present, Lord George?’ said that fellow Gager. ‘What the devil’s that to you?’ I asked him. He just laughed and shook his head. I don’t doubt but that there’s a policeman about waiting till I leave this house; or looking at me now with a magnifying glass from the windows at the other side. They’ve photographed me while I’m going about, and published a list of every hair on my face in the ‘Hue and Cry.’ I dined at the club yesterday, and found a strange waiter. I feel certain that he was a policeman done up in livery all for my sake. I turned sharp round in the street yesterday, and found a man at a corner. I am sure that man was watching me, and was looking at my pockets to see whether the jewel case was there. As for myself, I can think of nothing else. I wish I had got them. I should have something then to pay me for all this nuisance.”
“I do wish you had,” said Lizzie.
“What I should do with them I cannot even imagine. I am always thinking of that, too, making plans for getting rid of them, supposing I had stolen them. My belief is, that I should be so sick of them that I should chuck them over the bridge into the river, only that I should fear that some policeman’s eye would be on me as I did it. My present position is not comfortable, but if I had got them I think that the weight of them would crush me altogether. Having a handle to my name, and being a lord, or, at least, called a lord, makes it all the worse. People are so pleased to think that a lord should have stolen a necklace!”
Lizzie listened to it all with a strange fascination. If this strong man were so much upset by the bare suspicion, what must be her condition? The jewels were in her desk up-stairs, and the police had been with her also, were even now probably looking after her and watching her. How much more difficult must it be for her to deal with the diamonds than it would have been for this man. Presently Mrs. Carbuncle left the room, and Lucinda followed her. Lizzie saw them go, and did not dare to go with them. She felt as though her limbs would not have carried her to the door. She was now alone with her Corsair; and she looked up timidly into his deep-set eyes, as he came and stood over her. “Tell me all that you know about it,” he said, in that deep, low voice which, from her first acquaintance with him, had filled her with interest, and almost with awe.