Early on the Wednesday morning, two or three hours before the time fixed for Lizzie’s visit to Mr. Camperdown, her cousin Frank came to call upon her. She presumed him to be altogether ignorant of all that Major Mackintosh had known, and therefore endeavoured to receive him as though her heart were light.
“Oh, Frank,” said she, “you have heard of our terrible misfortune here?”
“I have heard so much,” said he gravely, “that I hardly know what to believe, and what not to believe.”
“I mean about Miss Roanoke’s marriage?”
“Oh, yes; I have been told that it is broken off.”
Then Lizzie, with affected eagerness, gave him a description of the whole affair, declaring how horrible, how tragic, the thing had been from its very commencement. “Don’t you remember, Frank, down at Portray, they never really cared for each other? They became engaged the very time you were there.”
“I have not forgotten it.”
“The truth is, Lucinda Roanoke did not understand what real love meant. She had never taught herself to comprehend what is the very essence of love, and as for Sir Griffin Tewett, though he was anxious to marry her, he never had any idea of love at all. Did not you always feel that, Frank?”
“I’m sorry you have had so much to do with them, Lizzie.”
“There’s no help for spilt milk, Frank; and, as for that, I don’t suppose that Mrs. Carbuncle can do me any harm. The man is a baronet, and the marriage would have been respectable. Miss Roanoke has been eccentric, and that has been the long and the short of it. What will be done, Frank, with all the presents that were bought?”
“I haven’t an idea. They’d better be sold to pay the bills. But I came to you, Lizzie, about another piece of business.”
“What piece of business?” she asked, looking him in the face for a moment, trying to be bold, but trembling as she did 50. She had believed him to be ignorant of her story, but she had soon perceived, from his manner to her, that he knew it all, or at least that he knew so much that she would have to tell him all the rest. There could be no longer any secret with him. Indeed there could be no longer any secret with anybody. She must be prepared to encounter a world accurately informed as to every detail of the business which, for the last three months, had been to her a burden so oppressive that, at some periods, she had sunk altogether under the weight. She had already endeavoured to realise her position, and to make clear to herself the condition of her future life. Lord George had talked to her of perjury and prison, and had tried to frighten her by making the very worst her faults. According to him, she would certainly be made to pay for the diamonds, and would be enabled to do so by saving her income during a long term of incarceration. This was a terrible prospect of things; and she had almost believed in it. Then the major had come to her. The major, she thought, was the truest gentleman she had ever seen, and her best friend. Ah — if it had not been for the wife and seven children, there might still have been comfort! That which had been perjury with Lord George, had by the major been so simply, and yet so correctly, called an incorrect version of facts! And so it was — and no more than that. Lizzie, in defending herself to herself, felt that, though cruel magistrates and hard-hearted lawyers and pig-headed jurymen might call her little fault by the name of perjury, it could not be real, wicked perjury, because the diamonds had been her own. She had defrauded nobody — had wished to defraud nobody — if the people had only left her alone. It had suited her to give — an incorrect version of facts, because people had troubled themselves about her affairs; and now all this had come upon her! The major had comforted her very greatly; but still — what would the world say? Even he, kind and comfortable as he had been, had made her understand that she must go into court and confess the incorrectness of her own version. She believed every word the major said. Ah, there was a man worthy to be believed — a man of men! They could not take away her income or her castle. They could not make her pay for the diamonds. But still — what would the world say? And what would her lovers say? What one of her lovers thought proper to say, she had already heard. Lord George had spoken out, and had made himself very disagreeable. Lord Fawn, she knew, would withdraw the renewal of his offer, let her answer to him be what it might. But what would Frank say? And now Frank was with her, looking into her face with severe eyes.
She was more than ever convinced that the life of a widow was not suited for her and that, among her several lovers, she must settle her wealth and her heart upon some special lover. Neither her wealth nor her heart would be in any way injured by the confession which she was prepared to make. But then men are so timid, so false, and so blind! In regard to Frank, whom she now believed that she had loved with all the warmth of her young affections from the first moment in which she had seen him after Sir Florian’s death — she had been at great trouble to clear the way for him. She knew of his silly engagement to Lucy Morris, and was willing to forgive him that offence. She knew that he could not marry Lucy, because of his pennilessness and his indebtedness; and therefore she had taken the trouble to see Lucy, with the view of making things straight on that side. Lucy had, of course, been rough with her, and ill-mannered, but Lizzie thought that, upon the whole, she had succeeded. Lucy was rough and ill-mannered, but was, at the same time, what the world calls good, and would hardly persevere after what had been said to her. Lizzie was sure that, a month since, her cousin would have yielded himself to her willingly, if he could only have freed himself from Lucy Morris. But now, just in this very nick of time, which was so momentous to her, the police had succeeded in unravelling her secret, and there sat Frank, looking at her with stern, ill-natured eyes, like an enemy rather than a lover.
“What piece of business?” she asked, in answer to his question. She must be bold — if she could. She must brazen it out with him, if only she could be strong enough to put on her brass in his presence. He had been so stupidly chivalrous in believing all her stories about the robbery when nobody else had quite believed them, that she felt that she had before her a task that was very disagreeable and very difficult. She looked up at him, struggling to be bold, and then her glance sank before his gaze and fell upon the floor.
“I do not at all wish to pry into your secrets,” he said.
Secrets from him! Some such exclamation was on her lips, when she remembered that her special business, at the present moment, was to acknowledge a secret which had been kept from him.
“It is unkind of you to speak to me in that way,” said she.
“I am quite in earnest. I do not wish to pry into your secrets. But I hear rumours which seem to be substantiated; and though, of course, I could stay away from you ——”
“Oh — whatever happens, pray, pray do not stay away from me. Where am I to look for advice if you stay away from me?”
“That is all very well, Lizzie.”
“Ah, Frank, if you desert me, I am undone.”
“It is of course true that some of the police have been with you lately?”
“Major Mackintosh was here, about the end of last week — a most kind man, altogether a gentleman, and I was so glad to see him.”
“What made him come?”
“What made him come?” How should she tell her story? “Oh, he came — of course, about the robbery. They have found out everything. It was the jeweller, Benjamin, who concocted it all. That horrid, sly girl I had, Patience Crabstick, put him up to it. And there were two regular housebreakers. They have found it all out at last.”
“So I hear.”
“And Major Mackintosh came to tell me about it.”
“But the diamonds are gone!”
“Oh, yes — those weary, weary diamonds. Do you know, Frank, that, though they were my own, as much as the coat you wear is your own, I am glad they are gone, then I am glad that the police have not found them. They tormented me so that I hated them. Don’t you remember that I told you how I longed to throw them into the sea, and be rid of them forever?”
“That, of course, was a joke.”
“It was no joke, Frank. It was solemn, serious truth.”
“What I want to know is — where were they stolen?”
That of course was the question which hitherto Lizzie Eustace had answered by an incorrect version of facts, and now she must give the true version. She tried to put a bold face upon it, but it was very difficult. A face bold with brass she could not assume. Perhaps a little bit of acting might serve her turn, and a face that should be tender rather than bold.
“Oh, Frank!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears.
“I always supposed that they were taken at Carlisle,” said Frank. Lizzie fell on her knees, at his feet, with her hands clasped together, and her one long lock of hair hanging down so as to touch his arm. Her eyes were bright with tears, but were not, as yet, wet and red with weeping. Was not this confession enough? Was he so hard-hearted as to make her tell her own disgrace in spoken words? Of course he knew well enough, now, when the diamonds had been stolen. If he were possessed of any tenderness, any tact, any manliness, he would go on, presuming that question to have been answered.
“I don’t quite understand it all,” he said, laying his hand softly upon her shoulder. “I have been led to make so many statements to other people which now seem to have been — incorrect! It was only the box that was taken at Carlisle?”
“Only the box.” She could answer that question.
“But the thieves thought that the diamonds were in the box?”
“I suppose so. But, oh, Frank, don’t cross-question me about it. If you could know what I have suffered, you would not punish me any more. I have got to go to Mr. Camperdown’s this very day. I offered to do that at once, and I sha’n’t have strength to go through it if you are not kind to me now. Dear, dear Frank — do be kind to me.”
And he was kind to her. He lifted her up to the sofa and did not ask her another question about the necklace. Of course she had lied to him and to all the world. From the very commencement of his intimacy with her, he had known that she was a liar, and what else could he have expected but lies? As it happened, this particular lie had been very big, very efficacious, and the cause of boundless troubles. It had been wholly unnecessary, and from the first, though injurious to many, more injurious to her than to any other. He himself had been injured, but it seemed to him now that she had absolutely ruined herself. And all this had been done for nothing — had been done, as he thought, that Mr. Camperdown might be kept in the dark, whereas all the light in the world would have assisted Mr. Camperdown nothing. He brought to mind, as he stood over her, all those scenes which she had so successfully performed in his presence since she had come to London — scenes in which the robbery in Carlisle had been discussed between them. She had on these occasions freely expressed her opinion about the necklace, saying in a low whisper, with a pretty little shrug of her shoulders, that she presumed it to be impossible that Lord George should have been concerned in the robbery. Frank had felt, as she said so, that some suspicion was intended by her to be attached to Lord George. She had wondered whether Mr. Camperdown had known anything about it. She had hoped that Lord Fawn would now be satisfied. She had been quite convinced that Mr. Benjamin had the diamonds. She had been indignant that the police had not traced the property. She had asked in another whisper — a very low whisper indeed — whether it was possible that Mrs. Carbuncle should know more about it than she was pleased to tell? And all the while the necklace had been lying in her own desk, and she had put it there with her own hands!
It was marvellous to him that the woman could have been so false and have sustained her falsehood so well. And this was his cousin, his well-beloved; as a cousin, certainly well-beloved; and there had doubtless been times in which he had thought that he would make her his wife! He could not but smile as he stood looking at her, contemplating all the confusion which she had caused, and thinking how very little the disclosure of her iniquity seemed to confound herself.
“Oh, Frank, do not laugh at me,” she said.
“I am not laughing, Lizzie; I am only wondering.”
“And now, Frank, what had I better do?”
“Ah, that is difficult, is it not? You see I hardly know all the truth yet. I do not want to know more, but how can I advise you?”
“I thought you knew everything.”
“I don’t suppose anybody can do anything to you.”
“Major Mackintosh says that nobody can. He quite understands that they were my own property, and that I had a right to keep them in my desk if I pleased. Why was I to tell everybody where they were? Of course I was foolish, and now they are lost. It is I that have suffered. Major Mackintosh quite understands that, and says that nobody can do anything to me; only I must go to Mr. Camperdown.”
“You will have to be examined again before a magistrate.”
“Yes; I suppose I must be examined. You will go with me, Frank, won’t you?” He winced, and made no immediate reply. “I don’t mean to Mr. Camperdown, but before the magistrate. Will it be in a court?”
“I suppose so.”
“The gentleman came here before. Couldn’t he come here again?” Then he explained to her the difference of her present position, and in doing so he did say something of her iniquity. He made her understand that the magistrate had gone out of his way at the last inquiry, believing her to be a lady who had been grievously wronged, and one, therefore, to whom much consideration was due. “And I have been grievously wronged,” said Lizzie. But now she would be required to tell the truth in opposition to the false evidence which she had formerly given; and she would herself be exempted from prosecution for perjury only on the ground that she would be called on to criminate herself in giving evidence against criminals whose crimes had been deeper than her own. “I suppose they can’t quite eat me,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“No; they won’t eat you,” he replied gravely.
“And you will go with me?”
“Yes; I suppose I had better do so.”
“Ah, that will be so nice.” The idea of the scene at the police-court was not at all “nice” to Frank Greystock. “I shall not mind what they say to me as long as you are by my side. Everybody will know that they were my own, won’t they?”
“And there will be the trial afterwards.”
“Another trial?” Then he explained to her the course of affairs; that the men might not improbably be tried at Carlisle for stealing the box, and again in London for stealing the diamonds; that two distinct acts of burglary had been committed, and that her evidence would be required on both occasions. He told her also that her attendance before the magistrate on Friday would be only a preliminary ceremony, and that before the thing was over she would doubtless be doomed to bear a great deal of annoyance, and to answer very many disagreeable questions. “I shall care for nothing if you will only be at my side,” she exclaimed.
He was very urgent with her to go to Scotland as soon as her examination before the magistrates should be over, and was much astonished at the excuse she made for not doing so. Mrs. Carbuncle had borrowed all her ready money; but as she was now in Mrs. Carbuncle’s house she could repay herself a portion of the loan by remaining there and eating it out. She did not exactly say how much Mrs. Carbuncle had borrowed, but she left an impression on Frank’s mind that it was about ten times the actual sum. With this excuse he was not satisfied, and told her that she must go to Scotland, if only for the sake of escaping from the Carbuncle connection. She promised to obey him if he would be her convoy. The Easter holidays were just now at hand, and he could not refuse on the plea of time. “Oh, Frank, do not refuse me this; only think how terribly forlorn is my position!” He did not refuse, but he did not quite promise. He was still tender-hearted towards her in spite of her enormities. One iniquity, perhaps her worst iniquity, he did not yet know. He had not as yet heard of her disinterested appeal to Lucy Morris.
When he left her she was almost joyous for a few minutes, till the thought of her coming interview with Mr. Camperdown again overshadowed her. She had dreaded two things chiefly — her first interview with her cousin Frank after he should have learned the truth, and those perils in regard to perjury with which Lord George had threatened her. Both these bugbears had now vanished. That dear man, the major, had told her that there would be no such perils, and her cousin Frank had not seemed to think so very much of her lies and treachery! He had still been affectionate with her; he would support her before the magistrate, and would travel with her to Scotland. And after that who could tell what might come next? How foolish she had been to trouble herself as she had done — almost to choke herself with an agony of fear, because she had feared detection. Now she was detected, and what had come of it? That great officer of justice, Major Mackintosh, had been almost more than civil to her; and her dear cousin Frank was still a cousin, dear as ever. People, after all, did not think so very much of perjury — of perjury such as hers, committed in regard to one’s own property. It was that odious Lord George who had frightened her instead of comforting, as he would have done had there been a spark of the true Corsair poetry about him. She did not feel comfortably content as to what might be said of her by Lady Glencora and the Duke of Omnium, but she was almost inclined to think that Lady Glencora would support her. Lady Glencora was no poor, mealy-mouthed thing, but a woman of the world, who understood’ what was what. Lizzie no doubt wished that the trials and examinations were over; but her money was safe. They could not take away Portray, nor could they rob her of four thousand a year. As for the rest, she could live it down.
She had ordered the carriage to take her to Mr. Camperdown’s chambers, and now she dressed herself for the occasion. He should not be made to think, at any rate by her outside appearance, that she was ashamed of herself. But before she started she had just a word with Mrs. Carbuncle. “I think I shall go down to Scotland on Saturday,” she said, proclaiming her news not in the most gracious manner.
“That is if they let you go,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“What do you mean? Who is to prevent me?”
“The police. I know all about it, Lady Eustace, and you need not look like that. Lord George informs me that you will — probably be locked up today or tomorrow.”
“Lord George is a story-teller. I don’t believe he ever said so. And if he did, he knows nothing about it.”
“He ought to know, considering all that you have made him suffer. That you should have gone on with the necklace in your own box all the time, letting people think that he had taken it, and accepting his attentions all the while, is what I cannot understand! And however you were able to look those people at Carlisle in the face, passes me! Of course, Lady Eustace, you can’t stay here after what has occurred.”
“I shall stay just as long as I like.”
“Poor, dear Lucinda! I do not wonder that she should be driven beyond herself by so horrible a story. The feeling that she has been living all this time in the same house with a woman who had deceived all the police — all the police — has been too much for her. I know it has been almost too much for me.” And yet, as Lizzie at once understood, Mrs. Carbuncle knew nothing now which she had not known when she made her petition to be taken to Portray. And this was the woman, too, who had borrowed her money last week, whom she had entertained for months at Portray, and who had pretended to be her bosom-friend. “You are quite right in getting off to Scotland as soon as possible — if they will let you go,” continued Mrs. Carbuncle. “Of course you could not stay here. Up to Friday night it can be permitted; but the servants had better wait upon you in your own rooms.”
“How dare you talk to me in that way?” screamed Lizzie.
“When a woman has committed perjury,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, holding up both her hands in awe and grief, “nothing too bad can possibly be said to her. You are amenable to the outraged laws of the country, and it is my belief that they can keep you upon the treadmill and bread and water for months and months, if not for years.” Having pronounced this terrible sentence, Mrs. Carbuncle stalked out of the room. “That they can sequester your property for your creditors I know,” she said, returning for a moment and putting her head within the door.
The carriage was ready, and it was time for Lizzie to start if she intended to keep her appointment with Mr. Camperdown. She was much flustered and weakened by Mrs. Carbuncle’s ill-usage, and had difficulty in restraining herself from tears. And yet what the woman had said was false from beginning to end. The maid who was the successor of Patience Crabstick was to accompany her, and as she passed through the hall she so far recovered herself as to be able to conceal her dismay from the servants.
Reports had, of course, reached Mr. Camperdown of the true story of the Eustace diamonds. He had learned that the Jew jeweller had made a determined set at them, having in the first place hired housebreakers to steal them at Carlisle, and having again hired the same housebreakers to steal them from the house in Hertford Street, as soon as he knew that Lady Eustace had herself secreted them. By degrees this information had reached him, but not in a manner to induce him to declare himself satisfied with the truth. But now Lady Eustace was coming to him — as he presumed, to confess everything.
When he first heard that the diamonds had been stolen at Carlisle, he was eager, with Mr. Eustace, in contending that the widow’s liability in regard to the property was not at all the less because she had managed to lose it through her own pig-headed obstinacy. He consulted his trusted friend, Mr. Dove, on the occasion, making out another case for the barrister, and Mr. Dove had opined that if it could be first proved that the diamonds were the property of the estate and not of Lady Eustace, and afterwards proved that they had been stolen through her laches, then could the Eustace estate recover the value from her estate. As she had carried the diamonds about with her in an absurd manner, her responsibility might probably be established; but the non-existence of ownership by her must be first declared by a Vice-Chancellor, with probability of appeal to the Lords Justices and to the House of Lords. A bill in Chancery must be filed, in the first place, to have the question of ownership settled; and then, should the estate be at length declared the owner, restitution of the property which had been lost through the lady’s fault must be sought at common law.
That had been the opinion of the Turtle Dove, and Mr. Camperdown had at once submitted to the law of his great legal mentor. But John Eustace had positively declared when he heard it that no more money should be thrown away in looking after property which would require two lawsuits to establish, and which when established might not be recovered. “How can we make her pay ten thousand pounds? She might die first,” said John Eustace — and Mr. Camperdown had been forced to yield. Then came the second robbery, and gradually there was spread about a report that the diamonds had been in Hertford Street all the time; that they had not been taken at Carlisle, but certainly had been stolen at last.
Mr. Camperdown was again in a fever, and again had recourse to Mr. Dove and to John Eustace. He learned from the police all that they would tell him, and now the whole truth was to be divulged to him by the chief culprit herself. For to the mind of Mr. Camperdown the two housebreakers, and Patience Crabstick, and even Mr. Benjamin himself, were white as snow compared with the blackness of Lady Eustace. In his estimation no punishment could be too great for her, and yet he began to understand that she would escape scot-free! Her evidence would be needed to convict the thieves, and she could not be prosecuted for perjury when once she had been asked for her evidence.
“After all, she has only told a fib about her own property,” said the Turtle Dove.
“About property not her own,” replied Mr. Camperdown stoutly.
“Her own till the contrary shall have been proved; her own for all purposes of defence before a jury, if she were prosecuted now. Were she tried for the perjury, your attempt to obtain possession of the diamonds would be all so much in her favour.” With infinite regrets, Mr. Camperdown began to perceive that nothing could be done to her.
But she was to come to him and let him know, from her own lips, facts of which nothing more than rumour had yet reached him. He had commenced his bill in Chancery, and had hitherto stayed proceedings simply because it had been reported — falsely, as it now appeared — that the diamonds had been stolen at Carlisle. Major Mackintosh, in his desire to use Lizzie’s evidence against the thieves, had recommended her to tell the whole truth openly to those who claimed the property on behalf of her husband’s estate; and now, for the first time in her life, this odious woman was to visit him in his own chambers.
He did not think it expedient to receive her alone. He consulted his mentor, Mr. Dove, and his client, John Eustace, and the latter consented to be present. It was suggested to Mr. Dove that he might, on so peculiar an occasion as this, venture to depart from the established rule, and visit the attorney on his own quarter-deck; but he smiled, and explained that, though he was altogether superior to any such prejudice as that, and would not object at all to call on his friend, Mr. Camperdown, could any good effect arise from his doing so, he considered that were he to be present on this occasion he would simply assist in embarrassing the poor lady.
On this very morning, while Mrs. Carbuncle was abusing Lizzie in Hertford Street, John Eustace and Mr. Camperdown were in Mr. Dove’s chambers, whither they had gone to tell him of the coming interview. The Turtle Dove was sitting back in his chair, with his head leaning forward as though it were going to drop from his neck, and the two visitors were listening to his words. “Be merciful, I should say,” suggested the barrister. John Eustace was clearly of opinion that they ought to be merciful. Mr. Camperdown did not look merciful. “What can you get by harassing the poor, weak, ignorant creature?” continued Mr. Dove. “She has hankered after her bauble, and has told falsehoods in her efforts to keep it. Have you never heard of older persons, and more learned persons, and persons nearer to ourselves, who have done the same?” At that moment there was presumed to be great rivalry, not unaccompanied by intrigue, among certain leaders of the learned profession, with reference to various positions of high honour and emolument, vacant or expected to be vacant. A Lord Chancellor was about to resign, and a Lord Justice had died. Whether a somewhat unpopular Attorney-General should be forced to satisfy himself with the one place, or allowed to wait for the other, had been debated in all the newspapers. It was agreed that there was a middle course in reference to a certain second-class chief-justiceship — only that the present second-class chief-justice objected to shelving himself. There existed considerable jealousy, and some statements had been made which were not, perhaps, strictly founded on fact. It was understood both by the attorney and by the member of Parliament that the Turtle Dove was referring to these circumstances when he spoke of baubles and falsehoods, and of learned persons near to themselves. He himself had hankered after no bauble, but, as is the case with many men and women who are free from such hankerings, he was hardly free from that dash of malice which the possession of such things in the hands of others is so prone to excite. “Spare her,” said Mr. Dove. “There is no longer any material question as to the property, which seems to be gone irrecoverably. It is, upon the whole, well for the world that property so fictitious as diamonds should be subject to the risk of such annihilation. As far as we are concerned, the property is annihilated, and I would not harass the poor, ignorant young creature.”
As Eustace and the attorney walked across from the old to the new square, the former declared that he quite agreed with Mr. Dove. “In the first place, Mr. Camperdown, she is my brother’s widow.” Mr. Camperdown with sorrow admitted the fact. “And she is the mother of the head of our family. It should not be for us to degrade her; but rather to protect her from degradation, if that be possible.”
“I heartily wish she had got her merits before your poor brother ever saw her,” said Mr. Camperdown.
Lizzie, in her fears, had been very punctual; and when the two gentlemen reached the door leading up to Mr. Camperdown’s chambers, the carriage was already standing there. Lizzie had come up the stairs and had been delighted at hearing that Mr. Camperdown was out, and would be back in a moment. She instantly resolved that it did not become her to wait. She had kept her appointment, had not found Mr. Camperdown at home, and would be off as fast as her carriage wheels could take her. But, unfortunately, while with a gentle murmur she was explaining to the clerk how impossible it was that she should wait for a lawyer who did not keep his own appointment, John Eustace and Mr. Camperdown appeared upon the landing, and she was at once convoyed into the attorney’s particular room.
Lizzie, who always dressed well, was now attired as became a lady of rank, who had four thousand a year, and was the intimate friend of Lady Glencora Palliser. When last she saw Mr. Camperdown she had been arrayed for a long, dusty summer journey down to Scotland, and neither by her outside garniture nor by her manner had she then been able to exact much admiration. She had been taken by surprise in the street, and was frightened. Now, in difficulty though she was, she resolved that she would hold up her head and be very brave. She was a little taken aback when she saw her brother-inlaw, but she strove hard to carry herself with confidence.
“Ah, John,” she said, “I did not expect to find you with Mr. Camperdown.”
“I thought it best that I should be here, as a friend,” he said.
“It makes it much pleasanter for me, of course,” said Lizzie. “I am not quite sure that Mr. Camperdown will allow me to regard him as a friend.”
“You have never had any reason to regard me as your enemy, Lady Eustace,” said Mr. Camperdown. “Will you take a seat? I understand that you wish to state the circumstances under which the Eustace family diamonds were stolen while they were in your hands.”
“My own diamonds, Mr. Camperdown.”
“I cannot admit that for a moment, my lady.”
“What does it signify?” said Eustace. “The wretched stones are gone forever; and whether they were, of right, the property of my sister-inlaw or of her son, cannot matter now.”
Mr. Camperdown was irritated and shook his head. It cut him to the heart that everybody should take the part of the wicked, fraudulent woman who had caused him such infinite trouble. Lizzie saw her opportunity, and was bolder than ever. “You will never get me to acknowledge that they were not my own,” she said. “My husband gave them to me, and I know that they were my own.”
“They have been stolen, at any rate,” said the lawyer.
“Yes; they have been stolen.”
“And now will you tell us how?”
Lizzie looked round upon her brother-inlaw and sighed. She had never yet told the story in all its nakedness, although it had been three or four times extracted from her by admission. She paused, hoping that questions might be asked her which she could answer by easy monosyllables, but not a word was uttered to help.
“I suppose you know all about it,” she said at last.
“I know nothing about it,” said Mr. Camperdown.
“We heard that your jewel-case was taken out of your room at Carlisle and broken open,” said Eustace.
“So it was. They broke into my room in the dead of night, when I was in bed and fast asleep, and took the case away. When the morning came everybody rushed into my room, and I was so frightened that I did not know what I was doing. How would your daughter bear it if two men had cut away the locks and got into her bedroom when she was asleep? You don’t think about that at all.”
“And where was the necklace?” asked Eustace.
Lizzie remembered that her friend the major had specially advised her to tell the whole truth to Mr. Camperdown, suggesting that by doing so she would go far toward saving herself from any prosecution.
“It was under my pillow,” she whispered.
“And why did you not tell the magistrate that it had been under your pillow?”
Mr. Camperdown’s voice, as he put to her this vital question, was severe, and almost justified the little burst of sobs which came forth as a prelude to Lizzie’s answer. “I did not know what I was doing. I don’t know what you expect from me. You had been persecuting me ever since Sir Florian’s death, about the diamonds, and I didn’t know what I was to do. They were my own, and I thought I was not obliged to tell everybody where I kept them. There are things which nobody tells. If I were to ask you all your secrets would you tell them? When Sir Walter Scott was asked whether he wrote the novels, he didn’t tell.”
“He was not upon his oath, Lady Eustace.”
“He did take his oath, ever so many times. I don’t know what difference an oath makes. People ain’t obliged to tell their secrets, and I wouldn’t tell mine.”
“The difference is, Lady Eustace; that if you give false evidence upon oath, you commit perjury.”
“How was I to think of that, when I was so frightened and confused that I didn’t know where I was, or what I was doing? There — now I have told you everything.”
“Not quite everything. The diamonds were not stolen at Carlisle, but they were stolen afterwards. Did you tell the police what you had lost, or the magistrate, after the robbery in Hertford Street?”
“Yes; I did. There was some money taken, and rings, and other jewelry.”
“Did you tell them that the diamonds had been really stolen on that occasion?”
“They never asked me, Mr. Camperdown.”
“It is all as clear as a pikestaff, John,” said the lawyer.
“Quite clear, I should say,” replied Mr. Eustace.
“And I suppose I may go,” said Lizzie, rising from her chair.
There was no reason why she should not go; and, indeed, now that the interview was over, there did not seem to be any reason why she should have come. Though they had heard so much from her own mouth, they knew no more than they had known before. The great mystery had been elucidated, and Lizzie Eustace had been found to be the intriguing villain; but it was quite clear, even to Mr. Camperdown, that nothing could be done to her. He had never really thought that it would be expedient that she should be prosecuted for perjury, and he now found that she must go utterly scatheless, although, by her obstinacy and dishonesty, she had inflicted so great a loss on the distinguished family which had taken her to its bosom.
“I have no reason for wishing to detain you, Lady Eustace,” he said. “If I were to talk forever, I should not, probably, make you understand the extent of the injury you have done, or teach you to look in a proper light at the position in which you have placed yourself. When your husband died, good advice was given you, and given, I think, in a very kind way. You would not listen to it, and you see the result.”
“I ain’t a bit ashamed of anything,” said Lizzie.
“I suppose not,” rejoined Mr. Camperdown.
“Good-by, John.” And Lizzie put out her hand to her brother-inlaw.
“Good-by, Lizzie.”
“Mr. Camperdown, I have the honour to wish you good-morning.” Lizzie made a low courtesy to the lawyer, and was then attended to her carriage by the lawyer’s clerk. She had certainly come forth from the interview without fresh wounds.
“The barrister who will have the cross-examining of her at the Central Criminal Court,” said Mr. Camperdown, as soon as the door was closed behind her, “will have a job of work on his hands. There’s nothing a pretty woman can’t do when she’s got rid of all sense of shame.”
“She is a very great woman,” said John Eustace, “a very great woman; and, if the sex could have its rights, would make an excellent lawyer.” In the mean time Lizzie Eustace returned home to Hertford Street in triumph.
Lizzie’s interview with the lawyer took place on the Wednesday afternoon, and, on her return to Hertford Street she found a note from Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I have made arrangements for dining out today, and shall not return till after ten. I will do the same tomorrow, and on every day till you leave town, and you can breakfast in your own room. Of course you will carry out your plan for leaving this house on Monday. After what has passed, I shall prefer not to meet you again.
“J. C.”
And this was written by a woman who, but a few days since, had borrowed ￡150 from her, and who at this moment had in her hands fifty pounds’ worth of silver-plate, supposed to have been given to Lucinda, and which clearly ought to have been returned to the donor, when Luanda’s marriage was postponed — as the newspapers had said. Lucinda, at this time, had left the house in Hertford Street, but Lizzie had not been informed whither she had been taken. She could not apply to Lucinda for restitution of the silver, which was, in fact, held at that moment by the Albemarle Street hotel-keeper as part security for his debt; and she was quite sure that any application to Mrs. Carbuncle for either the silver or the debt would be unavailing. But she might, perhaps, cause annoyance by a letter, and could, at any rate, return insult for insult. She therefore wrote to her late friend.
“MADAM: I certainly am not desirous of continuing an acquaintance into which I was led by false representations, and in the course of which I have been almost absurdly hospitable to persons altogether unworthy of my kindness. Yourself and niece, and your especial friend, Lord George Carruthers, and that unfortunate young man, your niece’s lover, were entertained at my country-house, as my guests, for some months. I am here, in my own right, by arrangement; and, as I pay more than a proper share of the expense of the establishment, I shall stay as long as I please, and go when I please.
“In the mean time, as we are about to part, certainly forever, I must beg you at once to repay me the sum of ￡150, which you have borrowed from me; and I must also insist on your letting me have back the present of silver which was prepared for your niece’s marriage. That you should retain it as a perquisite for yourself cannot for a moment be thought of, however convenient it might be to yourself.
“Yours, etc.,
“E. EUSTACE.”
As far as the application for restitution went, or indeed in regard to the insult, she might as well have written to a milestone. Mrs. Carbuncle was much too strong, and had fought her battle with the world much too long, to regard such word-pelting as that. She paid no attention to the note, and as she had come to terms with the agent of the house by which she was to evacuate it on the following Monday, a fact which was communicated to Lizzie by the servant, she did not much regard Lizzie’s threat to remain there. She knew, moreover, that arrangements were already being made for the journey to Scotland.
Lizzie had come back from the attorney’s chambers in triumph, and had been triumphant when she wrote her note to Mrs. Carbuncle; but her elation was considerably repressed by a short notice which she read in the fashionable evening paper of the day. She always took the fashionable evening paper, and had taught herself to think that life without it was impossible. But on this afternoon she quarrelled with that fashionable evening paper forever. The popular and well-informed organ of intelligence in question informed its readers, that the Eustace diamonds — etc., etc. In fact, it told the whole story; and then expressed a hope that, as the matter had from the commencement been one of great interest to the public, who had sympathised with Lady Eustace deeply as to the loss of her diamonds, Lady Eustace would be able to explain that part of her conduct which certainly, at present, was quite unintelligible. Lizzie threw the paper from her with indignation, asking what right newspaper scribblers could have to interfere with the private affairs of such persons as herself.
But on this evening the question of her answer to Lord Fawn was the one which most interested her. Lord Fawn had taken long in the writing of his letter, and she was justified in taking what time she pleased in answering it; but, for her own sake, it had better be answered quickly. She had tried her hand at two different replies, and did not at all doubt but what she would send the affirmative answer, if she were sure that these latter discoveries would not alter Lord Fawn’s decision. Lord Fawn had distinctly told her that, if she pleased, he would marry her. She would please; having been much troubled by the circumstances of the past six months. But then, was it not almost a certainty that Lord Fawn would retreat from his offer on learning the facts which were now so well known as to have been related in the public papers? She thought that she would take one more night to think of it.
Alas; she took one night too many. On the next morning, while she was still in bed, a letter was brought to her from Lord Fawn, dated from his club the preceding evening.
“Lord Fawn presents his compliments to Lady Eustace. Lady Eustace will be kind enough to understand that Lord Fawn recedes altogether from the proposition made by him in his letter to Lady Eustace dated March 28th last. Should Lady Eustace think proper to call in question the propriety of this decision on the part of Lord Fawn, she had better refer the question to some friend, and Lord Fawn will do the same. Lord Fawn thinks it best to express his determination, under no circumstances, to communicate again personally with Lady Eustace on this subject, or, as far as he can see at present, on any other.”
The letter was a blow to her, although she had felt quite certain that Lord Fawn would have no difficulty in escaping from her hands as soon as the story of the diamonds should be made public. It was a blow to her, although she had assured herself a dozen times that a marriage with such a one as Lord Fawn, a man who had not a grain of poetry in his composition, would make her unutterably wretched. What escape would her heart have had from itself in such a union? This question she had asked herself over and over again, and there had been no answer to it. But then why had she not been beforehand with Lord Fawn? Why had she not rejected his second offer with the scorn which such an offer deserved? Ah, there was her misfortune; there was her fault!
But, with Lizzie Eustace, when she could not do a thing which it was desirable that she should be known to have done, the next consideration was whether she could not so arrange as to seem to have done it. The arrival of Lord Fawn’s note just as she was about to write to him was unfortunate. But she would still write to him, and date her letter before the time that his was dated. He probably would not believe her date. She hardly ever expected to be really believed by anybody. But he would have to read what she wrote; and writing on this pretence, she would avoid the necessity of alluding to his last letter.
Neither of the notes which she had by her quite suited the occasion, so she wrote a third. The former letter in which she declined his offer was, she thought, very charmingly insolent, and the allusion to his lordship’s scullion would have been successful, had it been sent on the moment, but now a graver letter was required; and the graver letter, the date of which, it will be observed, was the day previous to the morning on which she had received Lord Fawn’s last note, was as follows:
“HERTFORD ST., Wednesday, April 3.
“MY LORD: I have taken a week to answer the letter which your lordship has done me the honour of writing to me, because I have thought it best to have time for consideration in a matter of such importance. In this I have copied your lordship’s official caution.
“I think I never read a letter so false, so unmanly, and so cowardly, as that which you have found yourself capable of sending to me.
“You became engaged to me when, as I admit with shame, I did not know your character. You have since repudiated me and vilified my name, simply because, having found that I had enemies, and being afraid to face them, you wished to escape from your engagement. It has been cowardice from the beginning to the end. Your whole conduct to me has been one long, unprovoked insult, studiously concocted, because you have feared that there might possibly be some trouble for you to encounter. Nobody ever heard of anything so mean, either in novels or in real life.
“And now you again offer to marry me — because you are again afraid. You think you will be thrashed, I suppose, if you decline to keep your engagement; and feel that if you offer to go on with it, my friends cannot beat you. You need not be afraid. No earthly consideration would induce me to be your wife. And if any friend of mine should look at you as though he meant to punish you, you can show him this letter, and make him understand that it is I who have refused to be your wife, and not you who have refused to be my husband.
“E. EUSTACE.”
This epistle Lizzie did send, believing she could add nothing to its insolence, let her study it as she might. And she thought, as she read it for the fifth time, that it sounded as though it had been written before her receipt of the final note from himself, and that it would, therefore, irritate him the more.
This was to be the last week of her sojourn in town, and then she was to go down and bury herself at Portray, with no other companionship than that of the faithful Macnulty, who had been left in Scotland for the last three months as nurse-inchief to the little heir. She must go and give her evidence before the magistrate on Friday, as to which she had already received an odious slip of paper — but Frank would accompany her. Other misfortunes had passed off so lightly that she hardly dreaded this. She did not quite understand why she was to be so banished, and thought much on the subject. She had submitted herself to Frank’s advice when first she had begun to fear that her troubles would be insuperable. Her troubles were now disappearing; and, as for Frank — what was Frank to her, that she should obey him? Nevertheless, her trunks were being already packed, and she knew that she must go. He was to accompany her on her journey, and she would still have one more chance with him.
As she was thinking of all this, Mr. Emilius, the clergyman, was announced. In her loneliness she was delighted to receive any visitor, and she knew that Mr. Emilius would be at least courteous to her. When he had seated himself, he at once began to talk about the misfortune of the unaccomplished marriage, and in a very low voice hinted that from the beginning to end there had been something wrong. He had always feared that an alliance based on a footing that was so openly “pecuniary”— he declared that the word pecuniary expressed his meaning better than any other epithet — could not lead to matrimonial happiness. “We all know,” said he, “that our dear friend, Mrs. Carbuncle, had views of her own, quite distinct from her niece’s happiness. I have the greatest possible respect for Mrs. Carbuncle, and I may say esteem; but it is impossible to live long in any degree of intimacy with Mrs. Carbuncle without seeing that she is — mercenary.”
“Mercenary! indeed she is,” said Lizzie.
“You have observed it? Oh, yes; it is so, and it casts a shadow over a character which otherwise has so much to charm.”
“She is the most insolent and the most ungrateful woman that I ever heard of!” exclaimed Lizzie with energy. Mr. Emilius opened his eyes, but did not contradict her assertion. “As you have mentioned her name, Mr. Emilius, I must tell you. I have done everything for that woman. You know how I treated her down in Scotland.”
“With a splendid hospitality,” said Mr. Emilius.
“Of course she did not pay for anything there.”
“Oh, no!” The idea of any one being called upon to pay for what one ate and drank at a friend’s house was peculiarly painful to Mr. Emilius.
“And I have paid for everything here. That is to say, we have made an arrangement, very much in her favour. And she has borrowed large sums of money from me.”
“I am not at all surprised at that,” said Mr. Emilius.
“And when that poor unfortunate girl, her niece, was to be married to poor Sir Griffin Tewett, I gave her a whole service of plate.”
“What unparalleled generosity!”
“Would you believe she has taken the whole for her own base purposes? And then what do you think she has done?”
“My dear Lady Eustace, hardly anything would astonish me.”
Lizzie suddenly found a difficulty in describing to her friend the fact that Mrs. Carbuncle was endeavouring to turn her out of the house, without also alluding to her own troubles about the robbery. “She has actually told me,” she continued, “that I must leave the house without a day’s warning. But I believe the truth is, that she has run so much into debt that she cannot remain!”
“I know that she is very much in debt, Lady Eustace.”
“But she owed me some civility. Instead of that, she has treated me with nothing but insolence. And why, do you think? It is all because I would not allow her to take that poor, insane young woman to Portray Castle.”
“You don’t mean that she asked to go there?”
“She did, though.”
“I never heard such impertinence in my life — never,” said Mr. Emilius, again opening his eyes and shaking his head.
“She proposed that I should ask them both down to Portray, for — for — of course it would have been almost forever. I don’t know how I should have got rid of them. And that poor young woman is mad, you know-quite mad. She never recovered herself after that morning. Oh, what I have suffered about that unhappy marriage, and the cruel, cruel way in which Mrs. Carbuncle urged it on. Mr. Emilius, you can’t conceive the scenes which have been acted in this house during the last month. It has been dreadful! I wouldn’t go through such a time again for anything that could be offered to me. It has made me so ill that I am obliged to go down to Scotland to recruit my health.”
“I heard that you were going to Scotland, and I wished to have an opportunity of saying just a word to you in private before you left.” Mr. Emilius had thought a good deal about this interview, and had prepared himself for it with considerable care. He knew, with tolerable accuracy, the whole story of the necklace, having discussed it with Mrs. Carbuncle, who, as the reader will remember, had been told the tale by Lord George. He was aware of the engagement with Lord Fawn, and of the growing intimacy which had existed between Lord George and Lizzie. He had been watchful, diligent, patient, and had at last become hopeful. When he learned that his beloved was about to start for Scotland, he felt that it would be well that he should strike a blow before she went. As to a journey down to Ayrshire, that would be nothing to one so enamoured as was Mr. Emilius; and he would not scruple to show himself at the castle door without invitation. Whatever may have been his deficiencies, Mr. Emilius did not lack the courage needed to carry such an enterprise as this to a happy conclusion. As far as pluck and courage might serve a man, he was well served by his own gifts. He could, without a blush, or a quiver in his voice, have asked a duchess to marry him, with ten times Lizzie’s income. He had now considered deeply whether, with the view of prevailing, it would be better that he should allude to the lady’s trespasses in regard to the diamonds, or that he should pretend to be in ignorance; and he had determined that ultimate success might, with most probability, be achieved by a bold declaration of the truth. “I know how desperately you must be in want of some one to help you through your troubles, and I know also that your grand lovers will avoid you because of what you have done, and therefore you had better take me at once. Take me, and I’ll bring you through everything. Refuse me, and I’ll crush you.” Such were the arguments which Mr. Emilius had determined to use, and such the language — of course with some modifications. He was now commencing his work, and was quite resolved to leave no stone unturned in carrying it to a successful issue. He drew his chair nearer to Lizzie as he announced his desire for a private interview, and leaned over towards her with his two hands closed together between his knees. He was a dark, hookey-nosed, well-made man, with an exuberance of greasy hair, who would have been considered handsome by many women had there not been something, almost amounting to a squint, amiss with one of his eyes. When he was preaching it could hardly be seen, but in the closeness of private conversation it was disagreeable.
“Oh, indeed;” said Lizzie, with a look of astonishment, perfectly well-assumed. She had already begun to consider whether, after all, Mr. Emilius — would do.
“Yes; Lady Eustace; it is so. You and I have known each other now for many months, and I have received the most unaffected pleasure from the acquaintance, may I not say from the intimacy, which has sprung up between us?” Lizzie did not forbid the use of the pleasant word, but merely bowed. “I think that as a devoted friend and a clergyman, I shall not be thought to be intruding on private ground in saying that circumstances have made me aware of the details of the robberies by which you have been so cruelly persecuted.” So the man had come about the diamonds and not to make an offer! Lizzie raised her eyebrows, and bowed her head with the slightest possible motion. “I do not know how far your friends or the public may condemn you, but ——”
“My friends don’t condemn me at all, sir.”
“I am so glad to hear it!”
“Nobody has dared to condemn me except this impudent woman here, who wants an excuse for not paying me what she owes me.”
“I am delighted. I was going to explain that although I am aware you have infringed the letter of the law, and made yourself liable to proceedings which may, perhaps, be unpleasant ——”
“I ain’t liable to anything unpleasant at all, Mr. Emilius.”
“Then my mind is greatly relieved. I was about to remark, having heard in the outer world that there were those who ventured to accuse you of — of perjury ——”
“Nobody has dared to accuse me of anything. What makes you come here and say such things?”
“Ah, Lady Eustace. It is because these calumnies are spoken so openly behind your back.”
“Who speaks them? Mrs. Carbuncle and Lord George Carruthers, my enemies.”
Mr. Emilius was beginning to feel that he was not making progress. “I was on the point of observing to you that, according to the view of the matter which I as a clergyman have taken, you were altogether justified in the steps which you took for the protection of property which was your own, but which had been attacked by designing persons.”
“Of course I was justified,” said Lizzie.
“You know best, Lady Eustace, whether any assistance I can offer will avail you anything.”
“I don’t want any assistance, Mr. Emilius, thank you.”
“I certainly have been given to understand that they who ought to stand by you with the closest devotion have, in this period of what I may, perhaps, call — tribulation, deserted your side with cold selfishness.”
“But there isn’t any tribulation, and nobody has deserted my side.”
“I was told that Lord Fawn ——”
“Lord Fawn is an idiot.”
“Quite so; no doubt.”
“And I have deserted him. I wrote to him this very morning in answer to a pressing letter from him to renew our engagement, to tell him that that was out of the question. I despise Lord Fawn, and my heart never can be given where my respect does not accompany it.”
“A noble sentiment, Lady Eustace, which I reciprocate completely. And now, to come to what I may call the inner purport of my visit to you this morning — the sweet cause of my attendance on you — let me assure you that I should not now offer you my heart unless with my heart went the most perfect respect and esteem which any man ever felt for a woman.” Mr. Emilius had found the necessity of coming to the point by some direct road, as the lady had refused to allow him to lead up to it in the manner he had proposed to himself. He still thought that what he had said might be efficacious, as he did not for a moment believe her assertions as to her own friends and the nonexistence of any trouble as to the oaths which she had falsely sworn; but she carried the matter with a better courage than he had expected to find, and drove him out of his intended line of approach. He had, however, seized his opportunity without losing much time.
“What on earth do you mean, Mr. Emilius?”
“I mean to lay my heart, my hand, my fortunes, my profession, my career at your feet. I make bold to say of myself that I have, by my own unaided eloquence and intelligence, won for myself a great position in this swarming metropolis. Lady Eustace, I know your great rank. I feel your transcendent beauty, ah, too acutely. I have been told that you are rich; but I, myself, who venture to approach you as a suitor for your hand, am also somebody in the world. The blood that runs in my veins is as illustrious as your own, having descended to me from the great and ancient nobles of my native country. The profession which I have adopted is the grandest which ever filled the heart of man with aspirations. I have barely turned my thirty-second year, and I am known as the greatest preacher of my day, though I preach in a language which is not my own. Your House of Lords would be open to me as a spiritual peer would I condescend to come to terms with those who crave the assistance which I could give them. I can move the masses. I can touch the hearts of men. And in this great assemblage of mankind which you call London, I can choose my own society, among the highest of the land. Lady Eustace, will you share with me my career and my fortunes? I ask you because you are the only woman whom my heart has stooped to love.”
The man was a nasty, greasy, lying, squinting Jew preacher; an impostor, over forty years of age, whose greatest social success had been achieved when, through the agency of Mrs. Carbuncle, he made his way into Portray Castle. He was about as near an English mitre as had been that great man of a past generation, the Deputy Shepherd. He was a creature to loathe, because he was greasy and a liar and an impostor. But there was a certain manliness in him. He was not afraid of the woman; and in pleading his cause with her he could stand up for himself courageously. He had studied his speech, and having studied it he knew how to utter the words. He did not blush nor stammer nor cringe. Of grandfather or grandmother belonging to himself he had probably never heard, but he could so speak of his noble ancestors as to produce belief in Lizzie’s mind; and almost succeeded in convincing her that he was, by the consent of mankind, the greatest preacher of the day. While he was making his speech she almost liked his squint. She certainly liked the grease and nastiness. Presuming, as she naturally did, that something of what he said was false, she liked the lies. There was a dash of poetry about him; and poetry, as she thought, was not compatible, with humdrum truth. A man, to be a man in her eyes, should be able to swear that all his geese are swans; should be able to reckon his swans by the dozen, though he have not a feather belonging to him, even from a goose’s wing. She liked his audacity; and then when he was making love he was not afraid of talking out boldly about his heart. Nevertheless he was only Mr. Emilius the clergyman; and she had means of knowing that his income was not generous. Though she admired his manner and his language, she was quite aware that he was in pursuit of her money; and, from the moment in which she first understood his object, she was resolved that she would never become the wife of Mr. Emilius as long as there was a hope as to Frank Greystock.
“I was told, Mr. Emilius,” she said, “that you, some time since, had a wife.”
“It was a falsehood, Lady Eustace. From motives of pure charity I gave a home to a distant cousin. I was then in a land of strangers, and my life was misinterpreted. I made no complaint, but sent the lady back to her native country. My compassion could supply her wants there as well as here.”
“Then you still support her?”
Mr. Emilius, thinking there might be danger in asserting that he was subject to such an encumbrance, replied, “I did do so, till she found a congenial home as the wife of an honest man.”
“Oh, indeed. I’m quite glad to hear that.”
“And now, Lady Eustace, may I venture to hope for a favourable answer?”
Upon this, Lizzie made him a speech as long, and almost as well-turned, as her own. Her heart had of late been subject to many vicissitudes. She had lost the dearest husband that a woman had ever worshipped. She had ventured, for purposes with reference to her child, which she could not now explain, to think once again of matrimony with a person of high rank, who had turned out to be unworthy of her. She had receded (Lizzie, as she said this, acted the part of receding, with a fine expression of scornful face) and after that she was unwilling to entertain any further idea of marriage. Upon hearing this, Mr. Emilius bowed low, and before the street door was closed against him had begun to calculate how much a journey to Scotland would cost him.
On the Wednesday and Thursday Lizzie had been triumphant; for she had certainly come out unscathed from Mr. Camperdown’s chambers, and a lady may surely be said to triumph when a gentleman lays his hand, his heart, his fortunes, and all that he has got, at her feet; but when the Friday came, though she was determined to be brave, her heart did sink within her bosom. She understood well that she would be called upon to admit in public the falseness of the oaths she had sworn upon two occasions; and that, though she would not be made amenable to any absolute punishment for her perjury, she would be subject to very damaging remarks from the magistrate, and, probably, also from some lawyers employed to defend the prisoners. She went to bed in fairly good spirits, but in the morning she was cowed and unhappy. She dressed herself from head to foot in black, and prepared for herself a heavy black veil. She had ordered from the livery-stable a brougham for the occasion, thinking it wise to avoid the display of her own carriage. She breakfasted early, and then took a large glass of wine to support her. When Frank called for her, at a quarter to ten, she was quite ready, and grasped his hand almost without a word. But she looked into his face with her eyes filled with tears.
“It will soon be over,” he said. She pressed his hand, and made him a sign, to show that she was ready to follow him to the door. “The case will come on at once,” he said, “so that you will not be kept waiting.”
“Oh, you are so good; so good to me.” She pressed his arm, and did not speak again till they reached the police-court.
There was a great crowd about the office, which was in a little by-street, and so circumstanced that Lizzie’s brougham could hardly make its way up to the door. But way was at once made for her when Frank handed her out of it, and the policemen about the place were as courteous to her as though she had been the Lord Chancellor’s wife. Evil-doing will be spoken of with bated breath and soft words even by policemen, when the evildoer comes in a carriage and with a title. Lizzie was led at once into a private room, and told that she would be kept there only a very few minutes. Frank made his way into the court and found that two magistrates had just seated themselves on the bench. One would have sufficed for the occasion; but this was a case of great interest, and even police-magistrates are human in their interests. Greystock was allowed to get round to the bench and whisper a word or two to the gentleman who was to preside. The magistrate nodded his head, and the case began.
The unfortunate Mr. Benjamin had been sent back in durance vile from Vienna, and was present in the court. With him, as joint malefactor, stood Mr. Smiler, the great housebreaker, a huge, ugly, resolute-looking scoundrel, possessed of enormous strength, who was very intimately known to the police, with whom he had had various dealings since he had been turned out upon the town to earn his bread some fifteen years before. Indeed, long before that he had known the police — as far as his memory went back he had always known them. But the sportive industry of his boyish years was not now counted up against him. In the last fifteen years his biography had been written with all the accuracy due to the achievements of a great man; and during those hundred and eighty months he had spent over one hundred in prison, and had been convicted twenty-three times. He was now growing old, as a thief, and it was thought by his friends that he would be settled for life in some quiet retreat. Mr. Benjamin was a very respectable-looking man of about fifty, with slightly grizzled hair, with excellent black clothes, and showing, by a surprised air, his astonishment at finding himself in such a position. He spoke constantly, both to his attorney and to the barrister who was to show cause why he should not be committed, and throughout the whole morning was very busy. Smiler, who was quite at home, and who understood his position, never said a word to any one. He stood, perfectly straight, looking at the magistrate, and never for a moment leaning on the rail before him during the four hours that the case consumed. Once, when his friend, Billy Cann, was brought into court to give evidence against him, dressed up to the eyes, serene and sleek, as when we saw him once before at the “Rising Sun,” in Meek Street, Smiler turned a glance upon him which, to the eyes of all present, contained a threat of most bloody revenge. But Billy knew the advantages of his situation, and nodded at his old comrade, and smiled. His old comrade was very much stronger than he, and possessed of many natural advantages; but, perhaps, upon the whole, his old comrade had been the less intelligent thief of the two. It was thus that the by-standers read the meaning of Billy’s smile.
The case was opened very shortly and very clearly by the gentleman who was employed for the prosecution. It would all, he said, have lain in a nut-shell, had it not been complicated by a previous robbery at Carlisle. Were it necessary, he said, there would be no difficulty in convicting the prisoners for that offence also, but it had been thought advisable to confine the prosecution to the act of burglary committed in Hertford Street. He stated the facts of what had happened at Carlisle, merely for explanation, but would state nothing that could not be proven. Then he told all that the reader knows about the iron box. But the diamonds were not then in the box; and he told that story also, treating Lizzie with great tenderness as he did so. Lizzie, all this time, was sitting behind her veil in the private room, and did not hear a word of what was going on. Then he came to the robbery in Hertford Street. He would prove by Lady Eustace that the diamonds were left by her in a locked desk, were so deposited, though all her friends believed them to have been taken at Carlisle; and he would, moreover, prove by accomplices that they were stolen by two men, the younger prisoner at the bar being one of them, and the witness who would be adduced, the other; that they were given up by these men to the elder prisoner, and that a certain sum had been paid by him for the execution of the two robberies. There was much more of it; but to the reader, who knows all, it would be but a thrice-told tale. He then said that he first proposed to take the evidence of Lady Eustace, the lady who had been in possession of the diamonds when they were stolen. Then Frank Greystock left the court, and returned with poor Lizzie on his arm.
She was handed to a chair, and, after she was sworn, was told that she might sit down; but she was requested to remove her veil, which she had replaced as soon as she had kissed the book. The first question asked her was very easy. Did she remember the night at Carlisle? Would she tell the history of what occurred on that night? When the box was stolen, were the diamonds in it? No; she had taken the diamonds out for security, and had kept them under her pillow. Then came a bitter moment, in which she had to confess her perjury before the Carlisle bench; but even that seemed to pass off smoothly. The magistrate asked one severe question.
“Do you mean to say, Lady Eustace, that you gave false evidence on that occasion, knowing it to be false?”
“I was in such a state, sir, from fear, that I did not know what I was saying,” exclaimed Lizzie, bursting into tears, and stretching forth toward the bench her two clasped hands with the air of a suppliant.
From that moment the magistrate was altogether on her side, and so were the public. Poor, ignorant, ill-used young creature; and then so lovely! That was the general feeling. But she had not as yet come beneath the harrow of that learned gentleman on the other side, whose best talents were due to Mr. Benjamin. Then she told all she knew about the other robbery. She certainly had not said, when examined on that occasion, that the diamonds had then been taken. She had omitted to name the diamonds in her catalogue of the things stolen; but she was sure that she had never said that they were not then taken. She had said nothing about the diamonds, knowing them to be her own, and preferring to lose them, to the trouble of again referring to the night at Carlisle. Such was her evidence for the prosecution, and then she was turned over to the very learned and very acute gentleman whom Mr. Benjamin had hired for his defence, or rather, to show cause why he should not be sent for trial.
It must be owned that poor Lizzie did receive from his hands some of that punishment which she certainly deserved. This acute and learned gentleman seemed to possess for the occasion the blandest and most dulcet voice that ever was bestowed upon an English barrister. He addressed Lady Eustace with the softest words, as though he hardly dared to speak to a woman so eminent for wealth, rank, and beauty; but nevertheless he asked her some very disagreeable questions.
“Was he to understand that she went of her own will before the bench of magistrates at Carlisle, with the view of enabling the police to capture certain persons for stealing certain jewels, while she knew that the jewels were actually in her own possession?”
Lizzie, confounded by the softness of his voice as joined to the harshness of the question, could hardly understand him, and he repeated it thrice, becoming every time more and more mellifluous. “Yes,” said Lizzie at last.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Lizzie.
“Your ladyship did send the Cumberland police after men for stealing jewels which were in your ladyship’s own hands when you swore the information?”
“Yes,” said Lizzie.
“And your ladyship knew that the information was untrue?”
“Yes,” said Lizzie.
“And the police were pursuing the men for many weeks?”
“Yes,” said Lizzie.
“On your information?”
“Yes,” said Lizzie, through her tears.
“And your ladyship knew, all the time, that the poor men were altogether innocent of taking the jewels?”
“But they took the box,” said Lizzie, through her tears.
“Yes,” said the acute and learned gentleman, “somebody took your ladyship’s iron box out of the room, and you swore that the diamonds had been taken. Was it not the fact that legal proceedings were being taken against you for the recovery of the diamonds by persons who claimed the property?”
“Yes,” said Lizzie.
“And these persons withdrew their proceedings as soon as they heard that the diamonds had been stolen?”
Soft as he was in his manner, he nearly reduced Lizzie Eustace to fainting. It seemed to her that the questions would never end. It was in vain that the magistrate pointed out to the learned gentleman that Lady Eustace had confessed her own false swearing, both at Carlisle and in London, a dozen times, for he continued his questions over and over again, harping chiefly on the affair at Carlisle, and saying very little as to the second robbery in Hertford Street. His idea was to make it appear that Lizzie had arranged the robbery with the view of defrauding Mr. Camperdown, and that Lord George Carruthers, was her accomplice. He even asked her, almost in a whisper, and with the sweetest smile, whether she was not engaged to marry Lord George. When Lizzie denied this, he still suggested that some such alliance might be in contemplation. Upon this. Frank Greystock called upon the magistrate to defend Lady Eustace from such unnecessary vulgarity, and there was a scene in the court. Lizzie did not like the scene, but it helped to protect her from the contemplation of the public, who, of course, were much gratified by high words between two barristers. Lady Eustace was forced to remain in the private room during the examination of Patience Crabstick and Mr. Cann, and so did not hear it. Patience was a most obdurate and difficult witness — extremely averse to say evil of herself, and on that account unworthy of the good things which she had received. But Billy Cann was charming — graceful, communicative, and absolutely accurate. There was no shaking him. The learned and acute gentleman who tried to tear him in pieces could do nothing with him. He was asked whether he had not been a professional thief for ten years.
“Ten or twelve,” said he.
“Did he expect that any juryman would believe him on his oath?”
“Not unless I am fully corroborated.”
“Can you look that man in the face — that man who is at any rate so much honester than yourself?” asked the learned gentleman with pathos. Billy said that he thought he could, and the way in which he smiled upon Smiler caused a roar through the whole court.
The two men were, as a matter of course, committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court, and Lizzie Eustace was bound by certain penalties to come forward when called upon, and give her evidence again.
“I am glad that it is over,” said Frank, as he left her at Mrs. Carbuncle’s hall door.
“Oh, Frank, dearest Frank, where should I be if it were not for you?”
Lady Eustace did not leave the house during the Saturday and Sunday, and engaged herself exclusively with preparing for her journey. She had no further interview with Mrs. Carbuncle, but there were messages between them, and even notes were written. They resulted in nothing. Lizzie was desirous of getting back the spoons and forks, and, if possible, some of her money. The spoons and forks were out of Mrs. Carbuncle’s power — in Albemarle Street — and the money had, of course, been spent. Lizzie might have saved herself the trouble, had it not been that it was a pleasure to her to insult her late friend, even though, in doing so, new insults were heaped upon her own head. As for the trumpery spoons, they — so said Mrs. Carbuncle — were the property of Miss Roanoke, having been made over to her, unconditionally, long before the wedding, as a part of a separate pecuniary transaction. Mrs. Carbuncle had no power of disposing of Miss Roanoke’s property. As to the money which Lady Eustace claimed, Mrs. Carbuncle asserted that, when the final accounts should be made up between them, it would be found that there was a considerable balance due to Mrs. Carbuncle; but even were there anything due to Lady Eustace, Mrs. Carbuncle would decline to pay it, as she was informed that all moneys possessed by Lady Eustace were now confiscated to the Crown by reasons of the PERJURIES— the word was doubly scored in Mrs. Carbuncle’s note — which Lady Eustace had committed. This, of course, was unpleasant; but Mrs. Carbuncle did not have the honours of the battle all to herself. Lizzie also said some unpleasant things which, perhaps, were the more unpleasant because they were true. Mrs. Carbuncle had come pretty nearly to the end of her career, whereas Lizzie’s income, in spite of her perjuries, was comparatively untouched. The undoubted mistress of Portray Castle, and mother of the Sir Florian Eustace of the day, could still despise and look down upon Mrs. Carbuncle, although she were known to have told fibs about the family diamonds.
Lord George always came to Hertford Street on a Sunday, and Lady Eustace left word for him, with the servant, that she would be glad to see him before her journey into Scotland. “Goes tomorrow, does she?” said Lord George to the servant. “Well, I’ll see her.” And he was shown up to her room before he went to Mrs. Carbuncle.
Lizzie, in sending for him, had some half-formed idea of a romantic farewell. The man, she thought, had behaved very badly to her; had accepted very much from her hands, and had refused to give her anything in return; had become the first repository of her great secret, and had placed no mutual confidence in her. He had been harsh to her, and unjust; and then, too, he had declined to be in love with her! She was full of spite against Lord George, and would have been glad to injure him; but, nevertheless, there would be some excitement in a farewell, in which some mock affection might be displayed — and she would have an opportunity of abusing Mrs. Carbuncle.
“So you are off tomorrow?” said Lord George, taking his place on the rug before her fire, and looking down at her with his head a little on one side. Lizzie’s anger against the man chiefly arose from a feeling that he treated her with all a Corsair’s freedom without any of a Corsair’s tenderness. She could have forgiven the want of deferential manner, had there been any devotion — but Lord George was both impudent and indifferent.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank goodness, I shall get out of this frightful place tomorrow, and soon have once more a roof of my own over my head. What an experience I have had since I have been here!”
“We have all had an experience,” said Lord George, still looking at her with that half-comic turn of his face — almost as though he were investigating some curious animal of which so remarkable a specimen had never before come under his notice.
“No woman ever intended to show a more disinterested friendship than I have done; and what has been my return?”
“You mean to me — disinterested friendship to me?” And Lord George tapped his breast lightly with his fingers. His head was still a little on one side, and there was still the smile upon his face.
“I was alluding particularly to Mrs. Carbuncle.”
“Lady Eustace, I cannot take charge of Mrs. Carbuncle’s friendships. I have enough to do to look after my own. If you have any complaint to make against me, I will at least listen to it.”
“God knows I do not want to make complaints,” said Lizzie, covering her face with her hands.
“They don’t do much good — do they? It’s better to take people as you find ’em, and then make the best of ’em. They’re a queer lot, ain’t they — the sort of people one meets about in the world?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, Lord George.”
“Just what you were saying when you talked of your experiences. These experiences do surprise one. I have knocked about the world a great deal, and would have almost said that nothing would surprise me. You are no more than a child to me, but you have surprised me.”
“I hope I have not injured you, Lord George.”
“Do you remember how you rode to hounds the day your cousin took that other man’s horse? That surprised me.”
“Oh, Lord George, that was the happiest day of my life. How little happiness there is for people!”
“And when Tewett got that girl to say she’d marry him, the coolness with which you bore all the abomination of it in your house — for people who were nothing to you; that surprised me!”
“I meant to be so kind to you all.”
“And when I found that you always travelled with ten thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds in a box, that surprised me very much. I thought that you were a very dangerous companion.”
“Pray don’t talk about the horrid necklace.”
“Then came the robbery, and you seemed to lose your diamonds without being at all unhappy about them. Of course, we understand that now.” On hearing this, Lizzie smiled, but did not say a word. “Then I perceived that I— I was supposed to be the thief. You — you yourself couldn’t have suspected me of taking the diamonds, because — because you’d got them, you know, all safe in your pocket. But you might as well own the truth now. Didn’t you think that it was I who stole the box?”
“I wish it had been you,” said Lizzie laughing.
“All that surprised me. The police were watching me every day as a cat watches a mouse, and thought that they surely had got the thief when they found that I had dealings with Benjamin. Well, you — you were laughing at me in your sleeve all the time.”
“Not laughing, Lord George.”
“Yes, you were. You had got the kernel yourself, and thought that I had taken all the trouble to crack the nut and had found myself with nothing but the shell. Then, when you found you couldn’t eat the kernel, that you couldn’t get rid of the swag without assistance, you came to me to help you. I began to think then that you were too many for all of us. By Jove, I did! Then I heard of the second robbery, and, of course, I thought you had managed that too.”
“Oh, no,” said Lizzie.
“Unfortunately you didn’t; but I thought you did. And you thought that I had done it! Mr. Benjamin was too clever for us both, and now he is going to have penal servitude for the rest of his life. I wonder who will be the better of it all. Who’ll have the diamonds at last?”
“I do not in the least care. I hate the diamonds. Of course I would not give them up, because they were my own.”
“The end seems to be that you have lost your property, and sworn ever so many false oaths, and have brought all your friends into trouble, and have got nothing by it. What was the good of being so clever?”
“You need not come here to tease me, Lord George.”
“I came here because you sent for me. There’s my poor friend Mrs. Carbuncle, declares that all her credit is destroyed, and her niece unable to marry, and her house taken away from her — all because of her connection with you.”
“Mrs. Carbuncle is — is — is —. Oh, Lord George, don’t you know what she is?”
“I know that Mrs. Carbuncle is in a very bad way, and that that girl has gone crazy, and that poor Griff has taken himself off to Japan, and that I am so knocked about that I don’t know where to go; and somehow it seems all to have come from your little manoeuvres. You see we have all of us been made remarkable; haven’t we?”
“You are always remarkable, Lord George.”
“And it is all your doing. To be sure you have lost your diamonds for your pains. I wouldn’t mind it so much if anybody were the better for it. I shouldn’t have begrudged even Benjamin the pull, if he’d got it.”
He stood there, still looking down upon her, speaking with a sarcastic submissive tone, and, as she felt, intending to be severe to her. Though she believed that she hated him, she would have liked to get up some show of an affectionate farewell; some scene, in which there might have been tears, and tenderness, and poetry, and perhaps a parting caress; but with his jeering words and sneering face, he was as hard as a rock. He was now silent, but still looking down upon her as he stood motionless on the rug, so that she was compelled to speak again. “I sent for you, Lord George, because I did not like the idea of parting with you forever, without one word of adieu.”
“You are going to tear yourself away, are you?”
“I am going to Portray on Monday.”
“And never coming back any more? You’ll be up here before the season is over, with fifty more wonderful schemes in your little head. So Lord Fawn is done with, is he?”
“I have told Lord Fawn that nothing shall induce me ever to see him again.”
“And cousin Frank?”
“My cousin attends me down to Scotland.”
“Oh — h. That makes it altogether another thing. He attends you down to Scotland, does he? Does Mr. Emilius go too?”
“I believe you are trying to insult me, sir.”
“You can’t expect but what a man should be a little jealous, when he has been so completely cut out himself. There was a time, you know, when even cousin Frank wasn’t a better fellow than myself.”
“Much you thought about it, Lord George.”
“Well — I did. I thought about it a good deal, my lady. And I liked the idea of it very much.” Lizzie pricked up her ears. In spite of all his harshness, could it be that he should be the Corsair still? “I am a rambling, uneasy, ill-to-do sort of man, but still I thought about it. You are pretty, you know — uncommonly pretty.”
“Don’t, Lord George.”
“And I’ll acknowledge that the income goes for much. I suppose that’s real at any rate?”
“Well — I hope so. Of course it’s real. And so is the prettiness, Lord George — if there is any.”
“I never doubted that, Lady Eustace. But when it came to my thinking that you had stolen the diamonds, and you thinking that I had stolen the box ——! I’m not a man to stand on trifles, but, by George! it wouldn’t do then.”
“Who wanted it to do?” said Lizzie. “Go away. You are very unkind to me. I hope I may never see you again. I believe you care more for that odious vulgar woman down-stairs than you do for anybody else in the world.”
“Ah, dear! I have known her for many years, Lizzie, and that both covers and discovers many faults. One learns to know how bad one’s old friends are, but then one forgives them, because they are old friends.”
“You can’t forgive me — because I’m bad, and only a new friend.”
“Yes, I will. I forgive you all, and hope you may do well yet. If I may give you one bit of advice at parting, it is to caution you against being clever when there is nothing to get by it.”
“I ain’t clever at all,” said Lizzie, beginning to whimper.
“Good-by, my dear.”
“Good-by,” said Lizzie. He took her hand in one of his; patted her on the head with the other, as though she had been a child, and then left her.
Frank Greystock, the writer fears, will not have recommended himself to those readers of this tale who think the part of lover to the heroine should be always filled by a young man with heroic attributes. And yet the young member for Bobsborough was by no means deficient in fine qualities, and perhaps was quite as capable of heroism as the majority of barristers and members of Parliament among whom he consorted, and who were to him the world. A man born to great wealth may, without injury to himself or his friends, do pretty nearly what he likes in regard to marriage, always presuming that the wife he selects be of his own rank. He need not marry for money, nor need he abstain from marriage because he can’t support a wife without money. And the very poor man, who has no pretension to rank or standing, other than that which honesty may give him, can do the same. His wife’s fortune will consist in the labour of her hands, and in her ability to assist him in his home. But between these there is a middle class of men, who, by reason of their education, are peculiarly susceptible to the charms of womanhood, but who literally cannot marry for love, because their earnings will do no more than support themselves. As to this special young man, it must be confessed that his earnings should have done much more than that, but not the less did he find himself in a position in which marriage with a penniless girl seemed to threaten him and her with ruin. All his friends told Frank Greystock that he would be ruined were he to marry Lucy Morris; and his friends were people supposed to be very good and wise. The dean and the dean’s wife, his father and mother, were very clear that it would be so. Old Lady Linlithgow had spoken of such a marriage as quite out of the question. The Bishop of Bobsborough, when it was mentioned in his hearing, had declared that such a marriage would be a thousand pities. And even dear old Lady Fawn, though she wished it for Lucy’s sake, had many times prophesied that such a thing was quite impossible. When the rumour of the marriage reached Lady Glencora, Lady Glencora told her friend Madame Max Goesler that that young man was going to blow his brains out. To her thinking the two actions were equivalent. It is only when we read of such men that we feel that truth to his sweetheart is the first duty of man. I am afraid that it is not the advice which we give to our sons.
But it was the advice which Frank Greystock had most persistently given to himself since he had first known Lucy Morris. Doubtless he had vacillated, but on the balance of his convictions as to his own future conduct he had been much nobler than his friends. He had never hesitated for a moment as to the value of Lucy Morris. She was not beautiful. She had no wonderful gifts of nature. There was nothing of a goddess about her. She was absolutely penniless. She had never been what the world calls well-dressed. And yet she had been everything to him. There had grown up a sympathy between them quite as strong on his part as on hers, and he had acknowledged it to himself. He had never doubted his own love, and when he had been most near to convincing himself that in his peculiar position he ought to marry his rich cousin because of her wealth, then, at those moments, he had most strongly felt that to have Lucy Morris close to him was the greatest charm in existence. Hitherto his cousin’s money, joined to flatteries and caresses — which if a young man can resist he is almost more than a young man — had tempted him; but he had combated the temptation. On one memorable evening his love for Lucy had tempted him. To that temptation he had yielded, and the letter by which he became engaged to her had been written. He had never meant to evade it; had always told himself that it should not be evaded; but gradually days had been added to days, and months to months, and he had allowed her to languish without seeing him, and almost without hearing from him.
She too had heard from all sides that she was deserted by him, and she had written to him to give him back his troth; but she had not sent her letters. She did not doubt that the thing was over — she hardly doubted; and yet she would not send any letter. Perhaps it would be better that the matter should be allowed to drop without any letter-writing. She would never reproach him, though she would ever think him to be a traitor. Would not she have starved herself for him? Could she so have served him? And yet he could bear for her sake no touch of delay in his prosperity! Would she not have been content to wait, and always to wait, so that he, with some word of love, would have told her that he waited also? But he would not only desert her, but would give himself to that false, infamous woman, who was so wholly unfitted to be his wife. For Lucy, though to herself she would call him a traitor, and would think him to be a traitor, still regarded him as the best of mankind; as one who, in marrying such a one as Lizzie Eustace, would destroy all his excellence, as a man might mar his strength and beauty by falling into a pit. For Lizzie Eustace Lucy Morris had now no forgiveness. Lucy had almost forgotten Lizzie’s lies, and her preferred bribe, and all her meanness, when she made that visit to Hertford Street. Then when Lizzie claimed this man as her lover, a full remembrance of all the woman’s iniquities came back on Lucy’s mind. The statement that Lizzie then made Lucy did believe. She did think that Frank, her Frank, the man whom she worshipped, was to take this harpy to his bosom as his wife; and if it were to be so, was it not better that she should be so told? But from that moment poor Lizzie’s sins were ranker to Lucy Morris than even to Mr. Camperdown or Mrs. Hittaway. She could not refrain from saying a word even to old Lady Linlithgow. The countess had called her niece a little liar.
“Liar!” said Lucy, “I do not think Satan himself can lie as she does.”
“Heighty-tighty,” said the countess. “I suppose, then, there’s to be a match between Lady Satan and her cousin Frank?”
“They can do as they like about that,” said Lucy, walking out of the room.
Then came the paragraph in the fashionable evening newspaper; after that, the report of the examination before the magistrate; and then certain information that Lady Eustace was about to proceed to Scotland together with her cousin, Mr. Greystock, the Member for Bobsborough. “It is a large income,” said the countess, “but, upon my word, she’s dear at the money.” Lucy did not speak, but she bit her lip till the blood ran into her mouth. She was going down to Fawn Court almost immediately, to stay there with her old friends till she should be able to find some permanent home for herself. Once, and once only, would she endure discussion, and then the matter should be banished forever from her tongue.
Early on the appointed morning Frank Greystock, with a couple of cabs, was at Mrs. Carbuncle’s door in Hertford Street. Lizzie had agreed to start by a very early train — at eight A. M.— so that she might get through to Portray in one day. It had been thought expedient, both by herself and by her cousin, that for the present there should be no more sleeping at the Carlisle hotel. The robbery was probably still talked about in that establishment; and the report of the proceedings at the police-court had no doubt travelled as far north as the border city. It was to be a long day, and could hardly be other than sad. Lizzie, understanding this, feeling that, though she had been in a great measure triumphant over her difficulties before the magistrate, she ought still to consider herself, for a short while, as being under a cloud, crept down into the cab and seated herself beside her cousin, almost without a word. She was again dressed in black, and again wore the thick veil. Her maid, with the luggage, followed them, and they were driven to Euston Square almost without a word. On this occasion no tall footman accompanied them. “Oh, Frank; dear Frank,” she had said, and that was all. He had been active about the luggage and useful in giving orders, but beyond his directions and inquiries as to the journey he spoke not a word. Had she breakfasted? Would she have a cup of tea at the station? Should he take any luncheon for her? At every question she only looked into his face and shook her head. All thoughts as to creature comforts were over with her now forever. Tranquillity, a little poetry, and her darling boy, were all that she needed for the short remainder of her sojourn upon earth. These were the sentiments which she intended to convey when she shook her head and looked up into his eyes. The world was over for her. She had had her day of pleasure, and found how vain it was. Now she would devote herself to her child. “I shall see my boy again to-night,” she said, as she took her seat in the carriage.
Such was the state of mind, or such, rather, the resolutions, with which she commenced her journey. Should he become bright, communicative, and pleasant, or even tenderly silent, or perhaps, now at length, affectionate and demonstrative, she no doubt might be able to change as he changed. He had been cousinly but gloomy at the police-court; in the same mood when he brought her home; and, as she saw with the first glance of her eye, in the same mood again when she met him in the hall this morning. Of course she must play his tunes. Is it not the fate of women to play the tunes which men dictate, except in some rare case in which the woman can make herself the dictator? Lizzie loved to be a dictator; but at the present moment she knew that circumstances were against her.
She watched him — so closely. At first he slept a good deal. He was never in bed very early, and on this morning had been up at six. At Rugby he got out and ate what he said was his breakfast. Would she not have a cup of tea? Again she shook her head and smiled. She smiled as some women smile when you offer them a third glass of champagne. “You are joking with me, I know. You cannot think that I would take it.” This was the meaning of Lizzie’s smile. He went into the refreshment-room, growled at the heat of the tea and the abominable nastiness of the food provided, and then, after the allotted five minutes, took himself to a smoking-carriage. He did not rejoin his cousin till they were at Crewe. When he went back to his old seat, she only smiled again. He asked her whether she had slept, and again she shook her head. She had been repeating to herself the address to Ianthe’s soul, and her whole being was pervaded with poetry.
It was absolutely necessary, as he thought, that she should eat something, and he insisted that she should dine upon the road, somewhere. He, of course, was not aware that she had been nibbling biscuits and chocolate while he had been smoking, and had had recourse even to the comfort of a sherry flask which she carried in her dressing-bag. When he talked of dinner she did more than smile and refuse. She expostulated. For she well knew that the twenty minutes for dinner were allowed at the Carlisle station; and even if there had been no chocolate and no sherry, she would have endured on, even up to absolute inanition, rather than step out upon this well-remembered platform. “You must eat, or you’ll be starved,” he said. “I’ll fetch you something.” So he bribed a special waiter, and she was supplied with cold chicken and more sherry. After this Frank smoked again, and did not reappear till they had reached Dumfries.
Hitherto there had been no tenderness — nothing but the coldest cousinship. He clearly meant her to understand that he had submitted to the task of accompanying her back to Portray Castle as a duty, but that he had nothing to say to one who had so misbehaved herself. This was very irritating. She could have taken herself home to Portray without his company, and have made the journey more endurable without him than with him, if this were to be his conduct throughout. They had had the carriage to themselves all the way from Crewe to Carlisle, and he had hardly spoken a word to her. If he would have rated her soundly for her wickednesses, she could have made something of that. She could have thrown herself on her knees, and implored his pardon; or, if hard pressed, have suggested the propriety of throwing herself out of the carriage-window. She could have brought him round if he would only have talked to her, but there is no doing anything with a silent man. He was not her master. He had no power over her. She was the lady of Portray, and he could not interfere with her. If he intended to be sullen with her to the end, and to show his contempt for her, she would turn against him. “The worm will turn,” she said to herself. And yet she did not think herself a worm.
A few stations beyond Dumfries they were again alone. It was now quite dark, and they had already been travelling over ten hours. They would not reach their own station till eight, and then again there would be the journey to Portray. At last he spoke to her.
“Are you tired, Lizzie?”
“Oh, so tired!”
“You have slept, I think?”
“No, not once; not a wink. You have slept.” This she said in a tone of reproach.
“Indeed I have.”
“I have endeavoured to read, but one cannot command one’s mind at all times. Oh, I am so weary. Is it much farther? I have lost all reckoning as to time and place.”
“We change at the next station but one. It will soon be over now. Will you have a glass of sherry? I have some in my flask.” Again she shook her head. “It is a long way down to Portray, I must own.”
“Oh, I am so sorry that I have given you the trouble to accompany me.”
“I was not thinking of myself. I don’t mind it. It was better that you should have somebody with you — just for this journey.”
“I don’t know why this journey should be different from any other,” said Lizzie crossly. She had not done anything that made it necessary that she should be taken care of — like a naughty girl.
“I’ll see you to the end of it now, anyway.”
“And you’ll stay a few days with me, Frank? You won’t go away at once? Say you’ll stay a week. Dear, dear Frank; say you’ll stay a week. I know that the House doesn’t meet for ever so long. Oh, Frank, I do so wish you’d be more like yourself.” There was no reason why she should not make one other effort, and as she made it every sign of fatigue passed away from her.
“I’ll stay over tomorrow certainly,” he replied.
“Only one day!”
“Days with me mean money, Lizzie, and money is a thing which is at present very necessary to me.”
“I hate money.”
“That’s very well for you because you have plenty of it.”
“I hate money. It is the only thing that one has that one cannot give to those one loves. I could give you anything else — though it cost a thousand pounds.”
“Pray don’t. Most people like presents, but they only bore me.”
“Because you are so indifferent, Frank; so cold. Do you remember giving me a little ring?”
“Very well indeed. It cost eight and sixpence.”
“I never thought what it cost; but there it is.” This she said drawing off her glove and showing him her finger. “And when I am dead there it will be. You say you want money, Frank. May I not give it you? Are not we brother and sister?”
“My dear Lizzie, you say you hate money. Don’t talk about it.”
“It is you that talk about it. I only talk about it because I want to give it you; yes, all that I have. When I first knew what was the real meaning of my husband’s will, my only thought was to be of assistance to you.”
In real truth Frank was becoming very sick of her. It seemed to him now to have been almost impossible that he should ever soberly have thought of making her his wife. The charm was all gone, and even her prettiness had in his eyes lost its value. He looked at her, asking himself whether in truth she was pretty. She had been travelling all day, and perhaps the scrutiny was not fair. But he thought that even after the longest day’s journey Lucy would not have been soiled, haggard, dishevelled, and unclean, as was this woman.
Travellers again entered the carriage, and they went on with a crowd of persons till they reached the platform at which they changed the carriage for Troon. Then they were again alone, for a few minutes, and Lizzie with infinite courage determined that she would make her last attempt. “Frank,” she said, “you know what it is that I mean. You cannot feel that I am ungenerous. You have made me love you. Will you have all that I have to give?” She was leaning over close to him, and he was observing that her long lock of hair was out of curl and untidy, a thing that ought not to have been during such a journey as this.
“Do you not know,” he said, “that I am engaged to marry Lucy Morris?”
“No; I do not know it.”
“I have told you so more than once.”
“You cannot afford to marry her.”
“Then I shall do it without affording.”
Lizzie was about to speak, had already pronounced her rival’s name, in that tone of contempt which she so well knew how to use, when he stopped her. “Do not say anything against her, Lizzie, in my hearing, for I will not bear it. It would force me to leave you at the Troon station, and I had better see you now to the end of the journey.” Lizzie flung herself back into the corner of her carriage, and did not utter another word till she reached Portray Castle. He handed her out of the railway carriage and into her own vehicle which was waiting for them, attended to the maid, and got the luggage; but still she did not speak. It would be better that she should quarrel with him. That little snake Lucy would of course now tell him of the meeting between them in Hertford Street, after which anything but quarrelling would be impossible. What a fool the man must be, what an idiot, what a soft-hearted, mean-spirited fellow! Lucy, by her sly, quiet little stratagems, had got him once to speak the word, and now he had not courage enough to go back from it! He had less strength of will even than Lord Fawn! What she offered to him would be the making of him. With his position, his seat in Parliament, such a country house as Portray Castle, and the income which she would give him, there was nothing that he might not reach! And he was so infirm of purpose that though he had hankered after it all he would not open his hand to take it, because he was afraid of such a little thing as Lucy Morris! It was thus that she thought of him as she leaned back in the carriage without speaking. In giving her all that is due to her we must acknowledge that she had less feeling of the injury done to her charms as a woman than might have been expected. That she hated Lucy was a matter of course; and equally so that she should be very angry with Frank Greystock; but the anger arose from general disappointment rather than from any sense of her own despised beauty. “Ah, now I shall see my child,” she said, as the carriage stopped at the castle gate.
When Frank Greystock went to his supper Miss Macnulty brought to him his cousin’s compliments with a message saying that she was too weary to see him again that night. The message had been intended to be curt and uncourteous, but Miss Macnulty had softened it, so that no harm was done. “She must be very weary,” said Frank.
“I supposed though that nothing would ever really tire Lady Eustace,” said Miss Macnulty. “When she is excited nothing will tire her. Perhaps the journey has been dull.”
“Exceedingly dull!” said Frank, as he helped himself to the collops which the Portray cook had prepared for his supper.
Miss Macnulty was very attentive to him and had many questions to ask. About the necklace she hardly dared to speak, merely observing how sad it was that all those precious diamonds should have been lost forever. “Very sad indeed,” said Frank with his mouth full. She then went on to the marriage — the marriage that was no marriage. Was not that very dreadful? Was it true that Miss Roanoke was really — out of her mind? Frank acknowledged that it was dreadful, but thought that the marriage had it been completed would have been more so. As for the young lady, he knew only that she had been taken somewhere out of the way. Sir Griffin, he had been told, had gone to Japan.
“To Japan!” said Miss Macnulty, really interested. Had Sir Griffin gone no farther than Boulogne her pleasure in the news would certainly have been much less. Then she asked some single question about Lord George, and from that came to the real marrow of her anxiety. Had Mr. Greystock lately seen the — the Rev. Mr. Emilius? Frank had not seen the clergyman, and could only say of him that had Lucinda Roanoke and Sir Griffin Tewett been made one, the knot would have been tied by Mr. Emilius.
“Would it indeed? Did you not think Mr. Emilius very clever when you met him down here?”
“I don’t doubt but what he is a sharp sort of fellow.”
“Oh, Mr. Greystock, I don’t think that that’s the word for him at all. He did promise me when he was here that he would write to me occasionally, but I suppose that the increasing duties of his position have rendered that impossible.” Frank, who had no idea of the extent of the preacher’s ambition, assured Miss Macnulty that among his multifarious clerical labours it was out of the question that Mr. Emilius should find time to write letters.
Frank had consented to stay one day at Portray, and did not now like to run away without again seeing his cousin. Though much tempted to go at once, he did stay the day, and had an opportunity of speaking a few words to Mr. Gowran. Mr. Gowran was very gracious, but said nothing of his journey up to London. He asked various questions concerning her “leddyship’s” appearance at the police-court, as to which tidings had already reached Ayrshire, and pretended to be greatly shocked at the loss of the diamonds.
“When they talk o’ ten thoosand poond that’s a lee nae doobt?” asked Andy.
“No lie at all, I believe,” said Greystock.
“And her leddyship wad tak’ aboot wi’ her ten thoosand poond in a box?” Andy still showed much doubt by the angry glance of his eye and the close compression of his lips and the great severity of his demeanour as he asked the question.
“I know nothing about diamonds myself, but that is what they say they were worth.”
“Her leddyship her ain sell seems nae to ha’ been in ain story aboot the box, Muster Greystock?” But Frank could not stand to be cross-questioned on this delicate matter, and walked off, saying that as the thieves had not yet been tried for the robbery, the less said about it the better.
At four o’clock on that afternoon he had not seen Lizzie, and then he received a message from her to the effect that she was still so unwell from the fatigue of her journey that she could bear no one with her but her child. She hoped that her cousin was quite comfortable, and that she might be able to see him after breakfast on the following day. But Frank was determined to leave Portray very early on the following day, and therefore wrote a note to his cousin. He begged that she would not disturb herself, that he would leave the castle the next morning before she could be up, and that he had only further to remind her that she must come up to London at once as soon as she should be summoned for the trial of Mr. Benjamin and his comrade. It had seemed to Frank that she had almost concluded that her labours connected with that disagreeable matter were at end.
“The examination may be long, and I will attend you if you wish it,” said her cousin. Upon receiving this she thought it expedient to come down to him, and there was an interview for about a quarter of an hour in her own little sitting-room, looking out upon the sea. She had formed a project, and at once suggested it to him. If she found herself ill when the day of the trial came, could they make her go up and give her evidence? Frank told her that they could and that they would. She was very clever about it.
“They couldn’t go back to what I said at Carlisle, you know; because they already have made me tell all that myself.” As she had been called upon to criminate herself she could not now be tried for the crime. Frank, however, would not listen to this, and told her that she must come. “Very well, Frank. I know you like to have your own way. You always did. And you think so little of my feelings? I shall make inquiry and if f must, why, I suppose I must.”
“You’d better make up your mind to come.”
“Very well. And now, Frank, as I am so very tired, if you please, I’ll say good-by to you. I am very much obliged to you for coming with me. Good-by.” And so they parted.
On the day appointed, Lucy Morris went back from the house of the old countess to Fawn Court. “My dear,” said Lady Linlithgow, “I am sorry that you are going. Perhaps you’ll think I haven’t been very kind to you, but I never am kind. People have always been hard to me, and I’m hard. But I do like you.”
“I’m glad you like me, as we have lived together so long.”
“You may go on staying here, if you choose, and I’ll try to make it better.”
“It hasn’t been bad at all, only that there’s nothing particular to do. But I must go. I shall get another place as a governess somewhere, and that will suit me best.”
“Because of the money, you mean.”
“Well — that in part.”
“I mean to pay you something,” said the countess, opening her pocket-book, and fumbling for two banknotes which she had deposited there.
“Oh, dear, no. I haven’t earned anything.”
“I always gave Macnulty something, and she was not near so nice as you.” And then the countess produced two ten-pound notes. But Lucy would have none of her money, and when she was pressed, became proud and almost indignant in her denial. She had earned nothing, and she would take nothing; and it was in vain that the old lady spread the clean bits of paper before her. “And so you’ll go and be a governess again; will you?”
“When I can get a place.”
“I’ll tell you what, my dear. If I were Frank Greystock, I’d stick to my bargain.” Lucy at once fell a-crying, but she smiled upon the old woman through her tears. “Of course he’s going to marry that little limb of the devil.”
“Oh, Lady Linlithgow, if you can, prevent that!”
“How am I to prevent it, my dear? I’ve nothing to say to either of them.”
“It isn’t for myself I’m speaking. If I can’t — if I can’t — can’t have things go as I thought they would by myself, I will never ask any one to help me. It is not that I mean. I have given all that up.”
“You have given it up?”
“Yes; I have. But nevertheless I think of him. She is bad, and he will never be happy if he marries her. When he asked me to be his wife, he was mistaken as to what would be good for him. He ought not to have made such a mistake. For my sake he ought not.”
“That’s quite true, my dear.”
“But I do not wish him to be unhappy all his life. He is not bad, but she is very bad. I would not for worlds that anybody should tell him that he owed me anything; but if he could be saved from her, oh, I should be so glad.”
“You won’t have my money, then?”
“No, Lady Linlithgow.”
“You’d better. It is honestly your own.”
“I will not take it, thank you.”
“Then I may as well put it up again.” And the countess replaced the notes in her pocket-book. When this conversation took place, Frank Greystock was travelling back alone from Portray to London. On the same day the Fawn carriage came to fetch Lucy away. As Lucy was in peculiar distress, Lady Fawn would not allow her to come by any other conveyance. She did not exactly think that the carriage would console her poor favourite; but she did it as she would have ordered something specially nice to eat for any one who had broken his leg. Her soft heart had compassion for misery, though she would sometimes show her sympathy by strange expressions. Lady Linlithgow was almost angry about the carriage. “How many carriages and how many horses does Lady Fawn keep?” she asked.
“One carriage and two horses.”
“She’s very fond of sending them up into the streets of London, I think.” Lucy said nothing more, knowing that it would be impossible to soften the heart of this dowager in regard to the other. But she kissed the old woman at parting, and then was taken down to Richmond in state.
She had made up her mind to have one discussion with Lady Fawn about her engagement, the engagement which was no longer an engagement, and then to have done with it. She would ask Lady Fawn to ask the girls never to mention Mr. Greystock’s name in her hearing. Lady Fawn had also made up her mind to the same effect. She felt that the subject should be mentioned once, and once only. Of course Lucy must have another place, but there need be no hurry about that. She fully recognised her young friend’s feeling of independence, and was herself aware that she would be wrong to offer to the girl a permanent home among her own daughters, and therefore she could not abandon the idea of a future place; but Lucy would, of course, remain till a situation should be found for her that would be in every sense unexceptionable. There need, however, be no haste, and, in the mean time, the few words about Frank Greystock must be spoken. They need not, however, be spoken quite immediately. Let there be smiles, and joy, and a merry ring of laughter on this the first day of the return of their old friend. As Lucy had the same feeling on that afternoon they did talk pleasantly and were merry. The girls asked questions about the vulturess, as they had heard her called by Lizzie Eustace, and laughed at Lucy, to her face, when she swore that, after a fashion, she liked the old woman.
“You’d like anybody, then,” said Nina.
“Indeed I don’t,” said Lucy, thinking at once of Lizzie Eustace.
Lady Fawn planned out the next day with great precision. After breakfast, Lucy and the girls were to spend the morning in the old school-room, so that there might be a general explanation as to the doings of the last six months. They were to dine at three, and after dinner there should be the discussion. “Will you come up to my room at four o’clock, my dear?” said Lady Fawn, patting Lucy’s shoulder, in the breakfast-parlour. Lucy knew well why her presence was required. Of course she would come. It would be wise to get it over, and have done with it.
At noon Lady Fawn, with her three eldest daughters, went out in the carriage, and Lucy was busy among the others with books and maps and sheets of scribbled music. Nothing was done on that day in the way of instruction; but there was much of half-jocose acknowledgment of past idleness, and a profusion of resolutions of future diligence. One or two of the girls were going to commence a course of reading that would have broken the back of any professor, and suggestions were made as to very rigid rules as to the talking of French and German. “But as we can’t talk German,” said Nina, “we should simply be dumb.”
“You’d talk High-Dutch, Nina, sooner than submit to that,” said one of the sisters.
The conclave was still sitting in full deliberation, when one of the maids entered the room with a very long face. There was a gentleman in the drawing-room asking for Miss Morris! Lucy, who at the moment was standing at a table on which were spread an infinity of books, became at once as white as a sheet. Her fast friend, Lydia Fawn, who was standing by her, immediately took hold of her hand quite tightly. The face of the maid was fit for a funeral. She knew that Miss Morris had had a “follower,” that the follower had come, and that then Miss Morris had gone away. Miss Morris had been allowed to come back; and now, on the very first day, just when my lady’s back was turned, here was the follower again! Before she had come up with her message, there had been an unanimous expression of opinion in the kitchen that the fat would all be in the fire. Lucy was as white as marble, and felt such a sudden shock at her heart, that she could not speak. And yet she never doubted for a moment that Frank Greystock was the man. And with what purpose but one could he have come there? She had on the old, old frock in which, before her visit to Lady Linlithgow, she used to pass the morning amid her labours with the girls, a pale, gray, well-worn frock, to which must have been imparted some attraction from the milliner’s art, because everybody liked it so well, but which she had put on this very morning as a testimony, to all the world around her, that she had abandoned the idea of being anything except a governess. Lady Fawn had understood the frock well. “Here is the dear little old woman just the same as ever,” Lydia had said, embracing her.
“She looks as if she’d gone to bed before the winter, and had a long sleep, like a dormouse,” said Cecilia. Lucy had liked it all, and thoroughly appreciated the loving-kindness; but she had known what it all meant. She had left them as the engaged bride of Mr. Greystock, the member for Bobsborough; and now she had come back as Lucy Morris, the governess, again.
“Just the same as ever,” Lucy had said, with the sweetest smile. They all understood that in so saying she renounced her lover.
And now there stood the maid, inside the room, who, having announced that there was a gentleman asking for Miss Morris, was waiting for an answer. Was the follower to be sent about his business, with a flea in his ear, having come, slyly, craftily, and wickedly, in Lady Fawn’s absence; or would Miss Morris brazen it out, and go and see him?
“Who is the gentleman?” asked Diana, who was the eldest of the Fawn girls present.
“It’s he as used to come after Miss Morris before,” said the maid.
“It is Mr. Greystock,” said Lucy, recovering herself with an effort. “I had better go down to him. Will you tell him, Mary, that I’ll be with him almost immediately?”
“You ought to have put on the other frock, after all,” said Nina, whispering into her ear.
“He has not lost much time in coming to see you,” said Lydia.
“I suppose it was all because he didn’t like Lady Linlithgow,” said Cecilia. Lucy had not a word to say. She stood for a minute among them, trying to think, and then she slowly left the room.
She would not condescend to alter her dress by the aid of a single pin, nor by the adjustment of a ribbon. It might well be that, after the mingled work and play of the morning, her hair should not be smooth; but she was too proud to look at her hair. The man whom she had loved, who had loved her but had neglected her, was in the house. He would surely not have followed her thither did he not intend to make reparation for his neglect. But she would use no art with him; nor would she make any entreaty. It might be that, after all, he had the courage to come and tell her, in a manly, straightforward way, that the thing must be all over, that he had made a mistake, and would beg her pardon. If it were so, there should be no word of reproach. She would be quite quiet with him; but there should be no word of reproach. But if —— in that other case, she could not be sure of her behaviour; but she knew well that he would not have to ask long for forgiveness. As for her dress, he had chosen to love her in that frock before, and she did not think that he would pay much attention to her dress on the present occasion.
She opened the door very quietly and very slowly, intending to approach him in the same way; but in a moment, before she could remember that she was in the room, he had seized her in his arms, and was showering kisses upon her forehead, her eyes, and her lips. When she thought of it afterwards, she could not call to mind a single word that he had spoken before he held her in his embrace. It was she, surely, who had spoken first, when she begged to be released from his pressure. But she well remembered the first words that struck her ear. “Dearest Lucy, will you forgive me?” She could only answer them, through her tears, by taking up his hand and kissing it.
When Lady Fawn came back with the carriage, she herself saw the figures of two persons walking very close together, in the shrubberies.
“Is that Lucy?” she asked.
“Yes;” said Augusta, with a tone of horror. “Indeed it is; and — Mr. Greystock.”
Lady Fawn was neither shocked nor displeased; nor was she disappointed; but a certain faint feeling of being ill-used by circumstances came over her. “Dear me; the very first day!” she said.
“It’s because he wouldn’t go to Lady Linlithgow’s,” said Amelia. “He has only waited, mamma.”
“But the very first day!” exclaimed Lady Fawn. “I hope Lucy will be happy; that’s all.”
There was a great meeting of all the Fawns, as soon as Lady Fawn and the eldest girls were in the house. Mr. Greystock had been walking about the grounds with Lucy for the last hour and a half. Lucy had come in once to beg that Lady Fawn might be told directly she came in. “She said you were to send for her, mamma,” said Lydia.
“But it’s dinner-time, my dear. What are we to do with Mr. Greystock?”
“Ask him to lunch, of course,” said Amelia.
“I suppose it’s all right,” said Lady Fawn.
“I’m quite sure it’s all right,” said Nina.
“What did she say to you, Lydia?” asked the mother.
“She was as happy as ever she could be,” said Lydia. “There’s no doubt about it’s being all right, mamma. She looked just as she did when she got the letter from him before.”
“I hope she managed to change her frock,” said Augusta.
“She didn’t then,” said Cecilia.
“I don’t suppose he cares one half-penny about her frock,” said Nina. “I should never think about a man’s coat if I was in love.”
“Nina, you shouldn’t talk in that way,” said Augusta. Whereupon Nina made a face behind one of her sisters’ backs. Poor Augusta was never allowed to be a prophetess among them.
The consultation was ended by a decision in accordance with which Nina went as an ambassador to the lovers. Lady Fawn sent her compliments to Mr. Greystock, and hoped he would come in to lunch. Lucy must come in to dinner, because dinner was ready.
“And mamma wants to see you just for a minute,” added Nina, in a pretended whisper.
“Oh, Nina, you darling girl!” said Lucy, kissing her young friend in an ecstasy of joy.
“It’s all right?” asked Nina in a whisper which was really intended for privacy. Lucy did not answer the question otherwise than by another kiss.
Frank Greystock was, of course, obliged to take his seat at the table, and was entertained with a profusion of civility. Everybody knew that he had behaved badly to Lucy — everybody except Lucy herself, who, from this time forward, altogether forgot that she had for some time looked upon him as a traitor, and had made up her mind that she had been deceived and ill-used. All the Fawns had spoken of him, in Lucy’s absence, in the hardest terms of reproach, and declared that he was not fit to be spoken to by any decent person. Lady Fawn had known from the first that such a one as he was not to be trusted. Augusta had never liked him. Amelia had feared that poor Lucy Morris had been unwise, and too ambitious. Georgina had seen that, of course, it would never do. Diana had sworn that it was a great shame. Lydia was sure that Lucy was a great deal too good for him. Cecilia had wondered where he would go to; a form of anathema which had brought down a rebuke from her mother. And Nina had always hated him like poison. But now nothing was too good for him. An unmarried man who is willing to sacrifice himself is, in feminine eyes, always worthy of ribbons and a chaplet. Among all these Fawns there was as little selfishness as can be found, even among women. The lover was not the lover of one of themselves, but of their governess. And yet, though he desired neither to eat nor drink at that hour, something special had been cooked for him, and a special bottle of wine had been brought out of the cellar. All his sins were forgiven him. No single question was asked as to his gross misconduct during the last six months. No pledge or guarantee was demanded for the future. There he was, in the guise of a declared lover, and the fatted calf was killed.
After this early dinner it was necessary that he should return to town, and Lucy obtained leave to walk with him to the station. To her thinking now, there was no sin to be forgiven. Everything was, and had been, just as it ought to be. Had any human being hinted that he had sinned, she would have defended him to the death. Something was said between them about Lizzie, but nothing that arose from jealousy. Not till many months had passed did she tell him of Lizzie’s message to herself, and of her visit to Hertford Street; but they spoke of the necklace, and poor Lucy shuddered as she was told the truth about those false oaths.
“I really do think that, after that, Lord Fawn is right,” she said, looking round at her lover.
“Yes; but what he did, he did before that,” said Frank.
“But are they not good and kind?” she said, pleading for her friends. “Was ever anybody so well treated as they have treated me? I’ll tell you what, sir, you mustn’t quarrel with Lord Fawn any more. I won’t allow it.” Then she walked back from the station alone, almost bewildered by her own happiness.
That evening something like an explanation was demanded by Lady Fawn, but no explanation was forthcoming. When questions were asked about his silence, Lucy, half in joke and half in earnest, fired up and declared that everything had been as natural as possible. He could not have come to Lady Linlithgow’s house. Lady Linlithgow would not receive him. No doubt she had been impatient, but then that had been her fault. Had he not come to her the very first day after her return to Richmond? When Augusta said something as to letters which might have been written, Lucy snubbed her. “Who says he didn’t write. He did write. If I am contented, why should you complain?”
“Oh, I don’t complain,” said Augusta.
Then questions were asked as to the future; questions to which Lady Fawn had a right to demand an answer. What did Mr. Greystock propose to do now? Then Lucy broke down, sobbing, crying, triumphing, with mingled love and happiness. She was to go to the deanery. Frank had brought with him a little note to her from his mother, in which she was invited to make the deanery at Bobsborough her home for the present.
“And you are to go away just when you’ve come?” asked Nina.
“Stay with us a month, my dear,” said Lady Fawn, “just to let people know that we are friends, and after that the deanery will be the best home for you.” And so it was arranged.
It need only be further said, in completing the history of Lucy Morris as far as it can be completed in these pages, that she did go to the deanery, and that there she was received with all the affection which Mrs. Greystock could show to an adopted daughter. Her quarrel had never been with Lucy personally — but with the untoward fact that her son would not marry money. At the deanery she remained for fifteen happy months, and then became Mrs. Greystock, with a bevy of Fawn bridesmaids around her. As the personages of a chronicle such as this should all be made to operate backwards and forwards on each other from the beginning to the end, it would have been desirable that the chronicler should have been able to report that the ceremony was celebrated by Mr. Emilius; but as the wedding did not take place till the end of the summer, and as Mr. Emilius, at that time, never remained in town after the season was over, this was impossible; it was the Dean of Bobsborough, assisted by one of the minor canons, who performed the service.
Having told the tale of Lucy Morris to the end, the chronicler must now go back to the more important persons of this history. It was still early in April when Lizzie Eustace was taken down to Scotland by her cousin, and the trial of Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Smiler was fixed to take place at the Central Criminal Court about the middle of May. Early in May the attorneys for the prosecution applied to Greystock, asking him whether he would make arrangements for his cousin’s appearance on the occasion, informing him that she had already been formally summoned. Whereupon he wrote to Lizzie, telling her what she had better do, in the kindest manner — as though there had been no cessation of their friendly intercourse; offering to go with her into court — and naming a hotel at which he would advise her to stay, during the very short time that she need remain in London. She answered this letter at once. She was sorry to say that she was much too ill to travel, or even to think of travelling. Such was her present condition that she doubted greatly whether she would ever again be able to leave the two rooms to which she was at present confined. All that remained to her in life was to watch her own blue waves from the casement of her dear husband’s castle — that casement at which he had loved to sit — and to make herself happy in the smiles of her child. A few months would see the last of it all, and then, perhaps, they who had trampled her to death would feel some pang of remorse as they thought of her early fate. She had given her evidence once and had told all the truth — though she was now aware that she need not have done so, as she had been defrauded of a vast amount of property through the gross negligence of the police. She was advised now by persons who seemed really to understand the law, that she could recover the value of the diamonds which her dear, dear husband had given her, from the freeholders of the parish in which the robbery had taken place. She feared that her health did not admit of the necessary exertion. Were it otherwise she would leave no stone unturned to recover the value of her property — not on account of its value, but because she had been so ill-treated by Mr. Camperdown and the police. Then she added a postscript to say that it was quite out of the question that she should take any journey for the next six months.
The reader need hardly be told that Greystock did not believe a word of what she said. He felt sure that she was not ill. There was an energy in the letter hardly compatible with illness. But he could not make her come. He certainly did not intend to go down again to Scotland to fetch her; and even had he done so he could not have forced her to accompany him. He could only go to the attorneys concerned, and read to them so much of the letter as he thought fit to communicate to them.
“That won’t do at all,” said an old gentleman at the head of the firm. “She has been very leniently treated, and she must come.”
“You must manage it, then,” said Frank.
“I hope she won’t give us trouble, because if she does we must expose her,” said the second member.
“She has not even sent a medical certificate,” said the tyro of the firm, who was not quite so sharp as he will probably become when he has been a member of it for ten or twelve years. You should never ask the ostler whether he greases his oats. In this case Frank Greystock was not exactly in the position of the ostler; but he did inform his cousin by letter that she would lay herself open to all manner of pains and penalties if she disobeyed such a summons as she had received, unless she did so by a very strong medical advice, backed by a medical certificate.
Lizzie, when she received this, had two strings to her bow. A writer from Ayr had told her that the summons sent to her was not worth the paper on which it was printed in regard to a resident in Scotland; and she had also got a doctor from the neighbourhood who was satisfied that she was far too ill to travel up to London. Pulmonary debilitation was the complaint from which she was suffering, which, with depressed vitality in all the organs, and undue languor in all the bodily functions, would be enough to bring her to a speedy end if she so much as thought of making a journey up to London. A certificate to this effect was got in triplicate. One copy she sent to the attorneys, one to Frank, and one she kept herself.
The matter was very pressing indeed. It was considered that the trial could not be postponed till the next sitting at the Criminal Court, because certain witnesses in respect to the diamonds had been procured from Hamburg and Vienna, at a very great cost; they were actually on their way to London when Lizzie’s second letter was received. Mr. Camperdown had resolved to have the diamonds still, with a hope that they might be restored to the keeping of Messrs. Garnett, there to lie hidden and unused, at any rate for the next twenty years. The diamonds had been traced first to Hamburg and then to Vienna, and it was to be proved that they were now adorning the bosom of a certain enormously rich Russian princess. From the grasp of the Russian princess it was found impossible to rescue them; but the witnesses who, as it was hoped, might have aided Mr. Camperdown in his efforts, were to be examined at the trial.
A confidential clerk was sent down to Portray, but the confidential clerk altogether failed in making his way into Lizzie’s presence. Word was brought to him that nothing but force could take Lady Eustace from her bedchamber; and that force used to that effect might take her out dead, but certainly not alive. He made inquiry, however, about the doctor, and found that he certainly was a doctor. If a doctor will certify that a lady is dying, what can any judge do, or any jury? There are certain statements which, though they are false as hell, must be treated as though they were true as gospel. The clerk reported when he got back to London, that to his belief Lady Eustace was enjoying an excellent state of health; but that he was perfectly certain that she would not appear as a witness at the trial.
The anger felt by many persons as to Lizzie’s fraudulent obstinacy was intense. Mr. Camperdown thought that she ought to be dragged up to London by cart ropes. The attorneys engaged for the prosecution were almost beside themselves. They did send down a doctor of their own, but Lizzie would not see the doctor — would not see the doctor though threats of most frightful consequences were conveyed to her. She would be exposed, fined thousands of pounds, committed to jail for contempt of court, and prosecuted for perjury into the bargain. But she was firm. She wrote one scrap of a note to the doctor who came from London. “I shall not live to satisfy their rabid vengeance.” Even Frank Greystock felt almost more annoyed than gratified that she should be able thus to escape. People who had heard of the inquiry before the magistrate, had postponed their excitement and interest on the occasion because they knew that the day of the trial would be the great day; and when they heard that they were to be robbed of the pleasure of Lady Eustace’s cross-examination, there arose almost a public feeling of wrath that justice should be thus outraged. The doctor who had given the certificate was vilified in the newspapers, and long articles were written as to the impotence of the law. But Lizzie was successful, and the trial went on without her.
It appeared that though her evidence was very desirable it was not absolutely essential, as, in consequence of her certified illness, the statement which she had made at the police-court could be brought up and used against the prisoners. All the facts of the robbery were, moreover, proved by Patience Crabstick and Billy Cann; and the transfer of the diamonds by Mr. Benjamin to the man who recut them at Hamburg was also proved. Many other morsels of collateral evidence had also been picked up by the police, so that there was no possible doubt as to any detail of the affair in Hertford Street. There was a rumour that Mr. Benjamin intended to plead guilty. He might, perhaps, have done so had it not been for the absence of Lady Eustace; but as that was thought to give him a possible chance of escape, he stood his ground.
Lizzie’s absence was a great disappointment to the sightseers of London; but nevertheless the court was crowded. It was understood that the learned sergeant who was retained on this occasion to defend Mr. Benjamin, and who was assisted by the acute gentleman who had appeared before the magistrate, would be rather severe upon Lady Eustace, even in her absence; and that he would ground his demand for an acquittal on the combined facts of her retention of the diamonds, her perjury, and of her obstinate refusal to come forward on the present occasion. As it was known that he could be very severe, many came to hear him, and they were not disappointed. The reader shall see a portion of his address to the jury, which we hope may have had some salutary effect on Lizzie as she read it in her retreat at Portray looking out upon her own blue waves.
“And now, gentlemen of the jury, let me recapitulate to you the history of this lady as far as it relates to the diamonds, as to which my client is now in jeopardy. You have heard on the testimony of Mr. Camperdown that they were not hers at all, that, at any rate, they were not supposed to be hers by those in whose hands was left the administration of her husband’s estate, and that when they were first supposed to have been stolen at the inn at Carlisle, he had already commenced legal steps for the recovery of them from her clutches. A bill in Chancery had been filed because she had obstinately refused to allow them to pass out of her hands. It has been proved to you by Lord Fawn that though he was engaged to marry her he broke his engagement because he supposed her possession of these diamonds to be fraudulent and dishonest.” This examination had been terrible to the unfortunate undersecretary; and had absolutely driven him away from the India board and from Parliament for a month. “It has been proved to you that when the diamonds were supposed to have vanished at Carlisle, she there committed perjury. That she did so she herself stated on oath in that evidence which she gave before the magistrate when my client was committed, and which has, as I maintain, improperly and illegally been used against my client at this trial.” Here the judge looked over his spectacles and admonished the learned sergeant that his argument on that subject had already been heard, and the matter decided. “True, my lord; but my conviction of my duty to my client compels me to revert to it. Lady Eustace committed perjury at Carlisle, having the diamonds in her pocket at the very moment in which she swore that they had been stolen from her; and if justice had really been done in this case, gentlemen, it is Lady Eustace who should now be on her trial before you, and not my unfortunate client. Well, what is the next that we hear of it? It seems that she brought the diamonds up to London; but how long she kept them there nobody knows. It was, however, necessary to account for them. A robbery is got up between a young woman who seems to have been the confidential friend, rather than the maid, of Lady Eustace, and that other witness whom you have heard testifying against himself, and who is, of all the informers that ever came into my hands, the most flippant, the most hardened, the least conscientious, and the least credible. That those two were engaged in a conspiracy I cannot doubt. That Lady Eustace was engaged with them I will not say; but I will ask you to consider whether such may not probably have been the case. At any rate she then perjures herself again. She gives a list of the articles stolen from her, and omits the diamonds. She either perjures herself a second time, or else the diamonds, in regard to which my client is in jeopardy, were not in the house at all, and could not then have been stolen. It may very probably have been so. Nothing more probable. Mr. Camperdown and the managers of the Eustace estate had gradually come to a belief that the Carlisle robbery was a hoax, and therefore another robbery is necessary to account for the diamonds. Another robbery is arranged, and this young and beautiful widow, as bold as brass, again goes before the magistrate and swears. Either the diamonds were not stolen or else she commits a second perjury.
“And now, gentlemen, she is not here. She is sick forsooth at her own castle in Scotland, and sends to us a medical certificate; but the gentlemen who are carrying on this prosecution know their witness, and don’t believe a word of her sickness. Had she the feelings of woman in her bosom she ought indeed to be sick unto death. But they know her better and send down a doctor of their own. You have heard his evidence, and yet this wonderful lady is not before us. I say again that she ought to be here in that dock — in that dock in spite of her fortune, in that dock in spite of her title, in that dock in spite of her castle, her riches, her beauty, and her great relatives. A most wonderful woman, indeed, is the widow Eustace. It is she whom public opinion will convict as the guilty one in this marvellous mass of conspiracy and intrigue. In her absence, and after what she has done herself, can you convict any man either of stealing or of disposing of these diamonds?” The vigour, the attitude, and the indignant tone of the man were more even than his words; but, nevertheless, the jury found both Benjamin and Smiler guilty, and the judge sentenced them to penal servitude for fifteen years.
And this was the end of the Eustace diamonds, as far as anything was ever known of them in England. Mr. Camperdown altogether failed, even in his attempt to buy them back at something less than their value, and was ashamed himself to look at the figures, when he found how much money he had wasted for his clients in their pursuit. In discussing the matter afterwards with Mr. Dove, he excused himself by asserting his inability to see so gross a robbery perpetrated by a little minx, under his very eyes, without interfering with the plunder.
“I knew what she was,” he said, “from the moment of Sir Florian’s unfortunate marriage. He had brought a little harpy into the family, and I was obliged to declare war against her.” Mr. Dove seemed to be of opinion that the ultimate loss of the diamonds was, upon the whole, desirable as regarded the whole community.
“I should like to have had the case settled as to right of possession,” he said, “because there were in it one or two points of interest. We none of us know, for instance, what a man can, or what a man cannot, give away by a mere word.”
“No such word was ever spoken,” said Mr. Camperdown in wrath.
“Such evidence as there is would have gone to show that it had been spoken. But the very existence of such property so to be disposed of, or so not to be disposed of, is in itself an evil. Then, we have had to fight for six months about a lot of stones hardly so useful as the flags in the street, and then they vanish from us, leaving us nothing to repay us for our labour.” All of which Mr. Camperdown did not quite understand. Mr. Dove would be paid for his labour, as to which, however, Mr. Camperdown knew well that no human being was more indifferent than Mr. Dove.
There was much sorrow, too, among the police. They had no doubt succeeded in sending two scoundrels out of the social world, probably for life, and had succeeded in avoiding the reproach which a great robbery unaccounted for always entails upon them; but it was sad to them that the property should altogether have been lost; and sad also that they should have been constrained to allow Billy Cann to escape out of their hands. Perhaps the sadness may have been lessened to a certain degree in the breast of the great Mr. Gager by the charms and graces of Patience Crabstick, to whom he kept his word by making her his wife. This fact, or rather the prospect of this fact, as it then was, had also come to the knowledge of the learned sergeant, and in his hands had served to add another interest to the trial. Mr. Gager, when examined on the subject, did not attempt to deny the impeachment, and expressed a strong opinion that, though Miss Crabstick had given way to temptation under the wiles of the Jew, she would make an honest and an excellent wife. In which expectation let us trust that he may not be deceived.
Amusement had, indeed, been expected from other sources which failed. Mrs. Carbuncle had been summoned, and Lord George; but both of them had left town before the summons could reach them. It was rumoured that Mrs. Carbuncle, with her niece, had gone to join her husband at New York. At any rate, she disappeared altogether from London, leaving behind her an amount of debts which showed how extremely liberal in their dealings the great tradesmen of London will occasionally be. There were milliners’ bills which had been running for three years, and horse-dealers had given her credit year after year, though they had scarcely ever seen the colour of her money. One account, however, she had honestly settled. The hotel-keeper in Albemarle Street had been paid, and all the tribute had been packed and carried off from the scene of the proposed wedding banquet. What became of Lord George for the next six months nobody ever knew; but he appeared at Melton in the following November, and I do not know that any one dared to ask him questions about the Eustace diamonds.
Of Lizzie, and her future career, something further must be said in the concluding chapters of this work. She has been our heroine, and we must see her through her immediate troubles before we can leave her; but it may be as well to mention here that, although many threats had been uttered against her, not only by Mr. Camperdown and the other attorneys, but even by the judge himself, no punishment at all was inflicted upon her in regard to her recusancy, nor was any attempt made to punish her. The affair was over, and men were glad to avoid the necessity of troubling themselves further with the business. It was said that a case would be got up with the view of proving that she had not been ill at all, and that the Scotch doctor would be subjected to the loss of his degree, or whatever privileges in the healing art belonged to him; but nothing was done, and Lizzie triumphed in her success.
On the very day of the trial Mr. Emilius travelled from London to Kilmarnock. The trial took place on a Monday, so that he had at his command an entire week before he would be required to appear again in his church. He had watched the case against Benjamin and Smiler very closely, and had known beforehand, almost with accuracy, what witnesses would appear and what would not at the great coming event at the Old Bailey. When he first heard of Lady Eustace’s illness he wrote to her a most affectionately pastoral letter, strongly adjuring her to think of her health before all things, and assuring her that in his opinion and in that of all his friends she was quite right not to come up to London. She wrote him a very short but very gracious answer, thanking him for his solicitude and explaining to him that her condition made it quite impossible that she should leave Portray. “I don’t suppose anybody knows how ill I am; but it does not matter. When I am gone, they will know what they have done.” Then Mr. Emilius resolved that he would go down to Scotland. Perhaps Lady Eustace was not as ill as she thought; but it might be that the trial and the hard things lately said of her, and her loneliness and the feeling that she needed protection, might, at such a moment as this, soften her heart. She should know at least that one tender friend did not desert her because of the evil things which men said of her.
He went to Kilmarnock, thinking it better to make his approaches by degrees. Were he to present himself at once at the castle and be refused admittance, he would hardly know how to repeat his application or to force himself upon her presence. From Kilmarnock he wrote to her, saying that business connected with his ministrations during the coming autumn had brought him into her beautiful neighbourhood, and that he could not leave it without paying his respects to her in person. With her permission he would call upon her on the Thursday at about noon. He trusted that the state of her health would not prevent her from seeing him, and reminded her that a clergyman was often as welcome a visitor at the bedside of the invalid, as the doctor or the nurse. He gave her no address, as he rather wished to hinder her from answering him, but at the appointed hour he knocked at the castle door.
Need it be said that Lizzie’s state of health was not such as to preclude her from seeing so intimate a friend as Mr. Emilius. That she was right to avoid by any effort the castigation which was to have fallen upon her from the tongue of the learned sergeant, the reader who is not straight-laced will be disposed to admit. A lone woman, very young, and delicately organised! How could she have stood up against such treatment as was in store for her? And is it not the case that false pretexts against public demands are always held to be justifiable by the female mind? What lady will ever scruple to avoid her taxes? What woman ever understood her duty to the State? And this duty which was required of her was so terrible that it might well have reduced to falsehood a stouter heart than her own. It can hardly be reckoned among Lizzie’s great sins that she did not make that journey up to London; An appearance of sickness she did maintain, even with her own domestics. To do as much as that was due even to the doctor whom she had cajoled out of the certificate, and who was afterwards frightened into maintaining it. But Mr. Emilius was her clergyman — her own clergyman, as she took care to say to her maid — her own clergyman, who had come all the way from London to be present with her in her sickness; and of course she would see him.
Lizzie did not think much of the coming autumnal ministration at Kilmarnock. She knew very well why Mr. Emilius had undertaken the expense of a journey into Scotland in the middle of the London season. She had been maimed fearfully in her late contests with the world, and was now lame and soiled and impotent. The boy with none of the equipments of the skilled sportsman can make himself master of a wounded bird. Mr. Emilius was seeking her in the moment of her weakness, fearing that all chance of success might be over for him should she ever again recover the full use of her wings. All this Lizzie understood, and was able to measure Mr. Emilius at his own value of himself; but then, again, she was forced to ask herself what was her value. She had been terribly mauled by the fowlers. She had been hit, so to say, on both wings, and hardly knew whether she would ever again be able to attempt a flight in public. She could not live alone in Portray Castle for the rest of her days. Ianthe’s soul and the Corsair were not, in truth, able to console her for the loss of society. She must have somebody to depend upon — ah, some one whom, if it were possible, she might love. She saw no reason why she should not love Mr. Emilius. She had been shockingly ill-treated by Lord Fawn and the Corsair and Frank Greystock. No woman had ever been so knocked about in her affections. She pitied herself with an exceeding pity when she thought of all the hardships which she had endured. Left an early widow, persecuted by her husband’s family, twice robbed, spied upon by her own servants, unappreciated by the world at large, ill-used by three lovers, victimised by her selected friend, Mrs. Carbuncle, and now driven out of society because she had lost her diamonds, was she not more cruelly treated than any woman of whom she had ever read or heard? But she was not going to give up the battle, even now. She still had her income, and she had great faith in income. And though she knew that she had been grievously wounded by the fowlers, she believed that time would heal her wounds. The world would not continue to turn its back altogether upon a woman with four thousand pounds a year, because she had told a fib about her necklace. She weighed all this; but the conviction strongest upon her mind was the necessity that she should have a husband. She felt that a woman by herself in the world can do nothing, and that an unmarried woman’s strength lies only in the expectation that she may soon be married. To her it was essentially necessary that she should have the protection of a husband who might endure on her behalf some portion of those buffetings to which she seemed to be especially doomed. Could she do better with herself than to take Mr. Emilius?
Might she have chosen from all the world, Mr. Emilius was not, perhaps, the man whom she would have selected. There were, indeed, attributes in the man, very objectionable in the sight of some people, which to her were not specially disagreeable. She thought him rather good-looking than otherwise, in spite of a slight defect in his left eye. His coal-black, glossy hair commanded and obtained her admiration, and she found his hooky nose to be handsome. She did not think much of the ancestral blood of which he had boasted, and hardly believed that he would ever become a bishop. But he was popular, and with a rich, titled wife, might become more so. Mr. Emilius and Lady Eustace would, she thought, sound very well, and would surely make their way in society. The man had a grasping ambition about him, and a capacity, too, which, combined, would enable him to preach himself into notoriety. And then in marrying Mr. Emilius, should she determine to do so, she might be sure, almost sure, of dictating her own terms as to settlement. With Lord Fawn, with Lord George, or even with her cousin Frank, there would have been much difficulty. She thought that with Mr. Emilius she might obtain the undisputed command of her own income. But she did not quite make up her mind. She would see him and hear what he had to say. Her income was her own, and should she refuse Mr. Emilius, other suitors would no doubt come.
She dressed herself with considerable care — having first thought of receiving him in bed; but as the trial had now gone on without her, it would be convenient that her recovery should be commenced. So she had herself dressed in a white morning wrapper with pink bows, and allowed the curl to be made fit to hang over her shoulder. And she put on a pair of pretty slippers, with gilt bindings, and took a laced handkerchief and a volume of Shelley — and so prepared herself to receive Mr. Emilius. Lizzie, since the reader first knew her, had begun to use a little colouring in the arrangement of her face, and now, in honour of her sickness, she was very pale indeed; but still, through the paleness, there was the faintest possible tinge of pink colour shining through the translucent pearl powder. Any one who knew Lizzie would be sure that when she did paint she would paint well.
The conversation at first was, of course, confined to the lady’s health. She thought that she was, perhaps, getting better, though, as the doctor had told her, the reassuring symptoms might probably prove only too fallacious. She could eat nothing — literally nothing. A few grapes out of the hot-house had supported her for the last week. This statement was foolish on Lizzie’s part, as Mr. Emilius was a man of an inquiring nature, and there was not a grape in the garden. Her only delight was in reading and in her child’s society. Sometimes she thought that she would pass away with the boy in her arms and her favourite volume of Shelley in her hand. Mr. Emilius expressed a hope that she would not pass away yet, for ever so many years.
“Oh, my friend,” said Lizzie, “what is life, that one should desire it?” Mr. Emilius of course reminded her that, though her life might be nothing to herself, it was very much indeed to those who loved her. “Yes — to my boy,” said Lizzie. Mr. Emilius informed her, with confidence, that it was not only her boy that loved her. There were others — or, at any rate, one other. She might be sure of one faithful heart, if she cared for that. Lizzie only smiled and threw from her taper fingers a little paper pellet into the middle of the room — probably with the view of showing at what value she prized the heart of which Mr. Emilius was speaking.
The trial had occupied two days, Monday and Tuesday, and this was now the Wednesday. The result had been telegraphed to Mr. Emilius, of course without any record of the sergeant’s bitter speech, and the suitor now gave the news to his ladylove. Those two horrid men had at last been found guilty, and punished with all the severity of the law. “Poor fellows,” said Lady Eustace, “poor Mr. Benjamin! Those ill-starred jewels have been almost as unkind to him as to me.”
“He’ll never come back alive, of course,” said Mr. Emilius. “It’ll kill him.”
“And it will kill me too,” said Lizzie. “I have a something here which tells me that I shall never recover. Nobody will ever believe what I have suffered about those paltry diamonds. But he coveted them. I never coveted them, Mr. Emilius; though I clung to them because they were my darling husband’s last gift to me.” Mr. Emilius assured her that he quite understood the facts, and appreciated all her feelings.
And now, as he thought, had come the time for pressing his suit. With widows, he had been told, the wooing should be brisk. He had already once asked her to be his wife, and of course she knew the motive of his journey down to Scotland. “Dearest Lady Eustace,” he said suddenly, “may I be allowed to renew the petition which I was once bold enough to make to you in London?”
“Petition?” exclaimed Lizzie.
“Ah, yes: I can well understand that your indifference should enable you to forget it. Lady Eustace, I did venture to tell you — that — I loved you.”
“Mr. Emilius, so many men have told me that.”
“I can well believe it. Some have told you so, perhaps, from base, mercenary motives.”
“You are very complimentary, sir.”
“I shall never pay you any compliments, Lady Eustace. Whatever may be our future intercourse in life, you will only hear words of truth from my lips. Some have told you so from mercenary motives.” Mr. Emilius repeated the words with severity, and then paused to hear whether she would dare to argue with him. As she was silent, he changed his voice, and went on with that sweet, oily tone which had made his fortune for him. “Some, no doubt, have spoken from the inner depths of their hearts; but none, Lady Eustace, have spoken with such adamantine truth, with so intense an anxiety, with so personal a solicitude for your welfare in this world and the next, as that, or I should rather say those, which glow within this bosom.” Lizzie was certainly pleased by the manner in which he addressed her. She thought that a man ought to dare to speak out, and that on such an occasion as this he should venture to do so with some enthusiasm and some poetry. She considered that men generally were afraid of expressing themselves, and were as dumb as dogs from the want of becoming spirit. Mr. Emilius gesticulated, and struck his breast, and brought out his words as though he meant them.
“It is easy to say all that, Mr. Emilius,” she replied.
“The saying of it is hard enough, Lady Eustace. You can never know how hard, it is to speak from a, full heart. But to feel it, I will not say is easy; only to me; not to feel it is impossible. Lady Eustace, my heart is devoted to your heart, and seeks its comrade. It is sick with love, and will not be stayed. It forces from me words, words which will return upon me with all the bitterness of gall, if they be not accepted by you as faithful, ay and of great value.”
“I know well the value of such a heart as yours, Mr. Emilius.”
“Accept it then, dearest one.”
“Love will not always go by command, Mr. Emilius.”
“No, indeed; nor at command will it stay away. Do you think I have not tried that? Do you believe that for a man it can be pleasant to be rebuffed; that for one who up to this day has always walked on, triumphant over every obstacle, who has conquered every nay that has obstructed his path, it can have less of bitterness than the bitterness of death to encounter a no from the lips of a woman?”
“A poor woman’s no should be nothing to you, Mr. Emilius.”
“It is everything to me, death, destruction, annihilation, unless I can overcome it. Darling of my heart, queen of my soul, empress presiding over the very spirit of my being, say, shall I overcome it now?”
She had never been made love to after this fashion before. She knew, or half knew, that the man was a scheming hypocrite, craving her money, and following her in the hour of her troubles, because he might then have the best chance of success. She had no belief whatever in his love; and yet she liked it, and approved his proceedings. She liked lies, thinking them to be more beautiful than truth. To lie readily and cleverly, recklessly and yet successfully, was, according to the lessons which she had learned, a necessity in woman and an added grace in man. There was that wretched Macnulty, who would never lie; and what was the result? She was unfit even for the poor condition of life which she pretended to fill. When poor Macnulty had heard that Mr. Emilius was coming to the castle, and had not even mentioned her name, and again, when he had been announced on this very morning, the unfortunate woman had been unable to control her absurd disappointment.
“Mr. Emilius,” Lizzie said, throwing herself back upon her couch, “you press me very hard.”
“I would press you harder still to gain the glory I covet.” And he made a motion with arms as though he had already got her tight within his grasp.
“You take advantage of my illness.”
“In attacking a fortress do not the besiegers take all advantages? Dear Lady Eustace, allow me to return to London with the right of protecting your name at this moment, in which the false and the thoughtless are attacking it. You need a defender now.”
“I can defend myself, sir, from all attacks. I do not know that any one can hurt me.”
“God forbid that you should be hurt. Heaven forbid that even the winds of Heaven should blow too harshly on my beloved. But my beloved is subject to the malice of the world. My beloved is a flower all beautiful within and without, but one whose stalk is weak, whose petals are too delicate, whose soft bloom is evanescent. Let me be the strong staff against which my beloved may blow in safety.”
A vague idea came across Lizzie’s mind that this glowing language had a taste of the Bible about it, and that, therefore, it was in some degree impersonal and intended to be pious. She did not relish piety at such a crisis as this, and was therefore for a moment inclined to be cold; but she liked being called a flower, and was not quite sure whether she remembered her Bible rightly. The words which struck her ear as familiar might have come from Juan and Haidee, and if so, nothing could be more opportune.
“Do you expect me to give you an answer now, Mr. Emilius?”
“Yes, now.” And he stood before her in calm dignity, with his arms crossed upon his breast.
She did give him his answer then and there, but first she turned her face to the wall, or rather to the back of the sofa, and burst into a flood of tears. It was a delicious moment to her, that in which she was weeping. She sobbed forth something about her child, something about her sorrows, something as to the wretchedness of her lot in life, something of her widowed heart, something also of that duty to others which would compel her to keep her income in her own hands; and then she yielded herself to his entreaties.
That evening she thought it proper to tell Miss Macnulty what had occurred. “He is a great preacher of the gospel,” she said, “and I know no position in the world more worthy of a woman’s fondest admiration.” Miss Macnulty was unable to answer a word. She could not congratulate her successful rival, even though her bread depended on it. She crept slowly out of the room, and went up-stairs and wept.
Early in the month of June, Lady Eustace was led to the hymeneal altar by her clerical bridegroom. The wedding took place at the Episcopal Church at Ayr, far from the eyes of curious Londoners. It need only be further said that Mr. Emilius could be persuaded to agree to no settlements prejudicial to that marital supremacy which should be attached to the husband; and that Lizzie, when the moment came, knowing that her betrothal had been made public to all the world, did not dare to recede from another engagement. It may be that Mr. Emilius will suit her as well as any husband that she could find, unless it shall be found that his previous career has been too adventurous. After a certain fashion he will, perhaps, be tender to her; but he will have his own way in everything, and be no whit afraid when she is about to die in an agony of tears before his eyes. The writer of the present story may, however, declare that the future fate of this lady shall not be left altogether in obscurity.
The Whitsuntide holidays were late this year, not taking place till the beginning of June, and were protracted till the 9th of that month. On the 8th Lizzie and Mr. Emilius became man and wife, and on that same day Lady Glencora Palliser entertained a large company of guests at Matching Priory. That the Duke of Omnium was there was quite a matter of course. Indeed in these days Lady Glencora seldom separated herself far, or for any long time, from her husband’s uncle, doing her duty to the head of her husband’s family in the most exemplary manner. People, indeed, said that she watched him narrowly, but of persons in high station common people will say anything. It was at any rate certain that she made the declining years of that great nobleman’s life comfortable and decorous. Madame Max Goesler was also at Matching, a lady whose society always gave gratification to the duke. And Mr. Palliser was also there, taking the rest that was so needful to him; by which it must be understood that after having worked all day he was able to eat his dinner and then only write a few letters before going to bed, instead of attending the House of Commons till two or three o’clock in the morning; but his mind was still deep in quints and semi-tenths. His great measure was even now in committee. His hundred and second clause had been carried, with only nine divisions against him of any consequence. Seven of the most material clauses had no doubt been postponed, and the great bone of contention as to the two superfluous farthings still remained before him; nevertheless he fondly hoped that he would be able to send his bill complete to the House of Lords before the end of July. What might be done in the way of amendments there he had hitherto refused to consider. “If the peers choose to put themselves in opposition to the whole nation, on a purely commercial question, the responsibility of all evils that may follow must be at their doors.” This he had said as a commoner. A year or two at the furthest — or more probably a few months — would make him a peer; and then no doubt he would look at the matter in a wholly different light. But he worked at his great measure with a diligence which at any rate deserved success; and he now had with him a whole bevy of secretaries, private secretaries, chief clerks, and accountants, all of whom Lady Glencora captivated by her flattering ways and laughed at behind their backs. Mr. Bonteen was there with his wife, repeatedly declaring to all his friends that England would achieve the glories of decimal coinage by his blood and over his grave, and Barrington Erle, who took things much more easily, and Lord Chiltern, with his wife, who would occasionally ask her if she could explain to him the value of a quint, and many others whom it may not be necessary to name. Lord Fawn was not there. Lord Fawn, whose health had temporarily given way beneath the pressing labours of the India board, was visiting his estates in Tipperary.
“She is married today, duke, down in Scotland,” said Lady Glencora, sitting close to the duke’s ear, for the duke was a little deaf. They were in the duke’s small morning sitting-room, and no one else was present excepting Madame Max Goesler.
“Married tomorrow down in Scotland. Dear, dear! what is he?” The profession to which Mr. Emilius belonged had been mentioned to the duke more than once before.
“He’s some sort of a clergyman, duke. You went and heard him preach, Madame Max. You can tell us what he’s like.”
“Oh, yes; he’s a clergyman of our Church,” said Madame Goesler.
“A clergyman of our Church; dear, dear! And married in Scotland! That makes it stranger. I wonder what made a clergyman marry her?”
“Money, duke,” said Lady Glencora, speaking very loud.
“Oh, ah, yes; money. So he’d got money; had he?”
“Not a penny, duke; but she had.”
“Oh, ah, yes. I forgot. She was very well left; wasn’t she? And so she has married a clergyman without a penny. Dear, dear! Did not you say she was very beautiful?”
“Lovely!”
“Let me see, you went and saw her, didn’t you?”
“I went to her twice, and got quite scolded about it. Plantagenet said that if I wanted horrors I’d better go to Madame Tussaud. Didn’t he, Madame Max?” Madame Max smiled and nodded her head.
“And what’s the clergyman like?” asked the duke.
“Now, my dear, you must take up the running,” said Lady Glencora, dropping her voice. “I ran after the lady but it was you who ran after the gentleman.” Then she raised her voice. “Madame Max will tell you all about it, duke. She knows him very well.”
“You know him very well; do you? Dear, dear dear!”
“I don’t know him at all, duke, but I once went to hear him preach. He’s one of those men who string words together, and do a good deal of work with a cambric pocket-handkerchief.”
“A gentleman?” asked the duke.
“About as like a gentleman as you’re like an archbishop,” said Lady Glencora.
This tickled the duke amazingly. “He, he, he; I don’t see why I shouldn’t be like an archbishop. If I hadn’t happened to be a duke I should have liked to be an archbishop. Both the archbishops take rank of me. I never quite understood why that was, but they do. And these things never can be altered when they’re once settled. It’s quite absurd nowadays since they’ve cut the archbishops down so terribly. They were princes once, I suppose, and had great power. But it’s quite absurd now, and so they must feel it. I have often thought about that a good deal, Glencora.”
“And I think about poor Mrs. Arch, who hasn’t got any rank at all.”
“A great prelate having a wife does seem to be an absurdity,” said Madame Max, who had passed some years of her life in a Catholic country.
“And the man is a cad; is he?” asked the duke.
“A Bohemian Jew, duke, an impostor who has come over here to make a fortune. We hear that he has a wife in Prague, and probably two or three elsewhere. But he has got poor little Lizzie Eustace and all her money into his grasp, and they who know him say that he’s likely to keep it.”
“Dear, dear, dear!”
“Barrington says that the best spec he knows out, for a younger son, would be to go to Prague for the former wife and bring her back, with evidence of the marriage. The poor little woman could not fail of being grateful to the hero who would liberate her.”
“Dear, dear, dear!” said the duke. “And the diamonds never turned up after all. I think that was a pity, because I knew the late man’s father very well. We used to be together a good deal at one time. He had a fine property, and we used to live — but I can’t just tell you how we used to live. He, he, he!”
“You had better tell us nothing about it, duke,” said Madame Max.
The affairs of our heroine were again discussed that evening, in another part of the Priory. They were in the billiard-room in the evening, and Mr. Bonteen was inveighing against the inadequacy of the law as it had been brought to bear against the sinners who between them had succeeded in making away with the Eustace diamonds. “It was a most unworthy conclusion to such a plot,” he said. “It always happens that they catch the small fry and let the large fish escape.”
“Whom did you specially want to catch?” asked Lady Glencora.
“Lady Eustace and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, as he calls himself.”
“I quite agree with you, Mr. Bonteen, that it would be very nice to send the brother of a marquis to Botany Bay or wherever they go now; and that it would do a deal of good to have the widow of a baronet locked up in the Penitentiary; but you see if they didn’t happen to be guilty it would be almost a shame to punish them for the sake of the example.”
“They ought to have been guilty,” said Barrington Erle.
“They were guilty,” protested Mr. Bonteen.
Mr. Palliser was enjoying ten minutes of recreation before he went back to his letters. “I can’t say that I attended to the case very closely,” he observed, “and perhaps, therefore, I am not, entitled to speak about it.”
“If people only spoke about what they attended to, how very little there would be to say, eh, Mr. Bonteen?” This observation came, of course, from Lady Glencora.
“But as far as I could hear,” continued Mr. Palliser, “Lord George Carruthers cannot possibly have had anything to do with it. It was a stupid mistake on the part of the police.”
“I’m not quite so sure, Mr. Palliser,” said Bonteen.
“I know Coldfoot told me so.” Now, Sir Harry Coldfoot was at this time Secretary of State for the home affairs, and in a matter of such importance, of course, had an opinion of his own.
“We all know that he had money dealings with Benjamin, the Jew,” said Mrs. Bonteen.
“Why didn’t he come forward as a witness when he was summoned?” asked Mrs. Bonteen triumphantly. “And as for the woman, does anybody mean to say that she should not have been indicted for perjury?”
“The woman, as you are pleased to call her, is my particular friend,” said Lady Glencora. When Lady Glencora made any such statement as this — and she often did make such statements — no one dared to answer her. It was understood that Lady Glencora was not to be snubbed, though she was very much given to snubbing others. She had attained this position for herself by a mixture of beauty, rank, wealth, and courage, but the courage had, of the four, been her greatest mainstay.
Then Lord Chiltern, who was playing billiards with Barrington Erle, rapped his cue down on the floor, and made a speech.
“I never was so sick of anything in my life as I am of Lady Eustace. People have talked about her now for the last six months.”
“Only three months, Lord Chiltern,” said Lady Glencora in a tone of rebuke.
“And all that I can hear of her is that she has told a lot of lies and lost a necklace.”
“When Lady Chiltern loses a necklace worth ten thousand pounds, there will be talk of her,” said Lady Glencora.
At that moment Madame Max Goesler entered the room and whispered a word to the hostess. She had just come from the duke, who could not bear the racket of the billiard-room. “Wants to go to bed, does he? Very well. I’ll go to him.”
“He seems to be quite fatigued with his fascination about Lady Eustace.”
“I call that woman a perfect god-send. What should we have done without her?” This Lady Glencora said almost to herself as she prepared to join the duke. The duke had only one more observation to make before he retired for the night.
“I’m afraid, you know, that your friend hasn’t what I call a good time before her, Glencora.”
In this opinion of the Duke of Omnium, the readers of this story will perhaps agree.
The End