The Eustace Diamonds Part 95

"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 a.s.sertion. "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 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 for ever. 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 go." 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 trespa.s.ses 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 help to 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 a.s.sumed. 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 circ.u.mstances 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!"

"n.o.body 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--"

"n.o.body 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 a.s.sistance I can offer will avail you anything."

"I don't want any a.s.sistance, 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 n.o.body 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sertions as to her own friends, and the non-existence 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?" she said.

"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 ill.u.s.trious as your own, having descended to me from the great and ancient n.o.bles 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 a.s.sistance which I could give them. I can move the ma.s.ses. I can touch the hearts of men. And in this great a.s.semblage 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 n.o.ble ancestors as to produce belief in Lizzie's mind. And he 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 some time since you used to have a wife."