The Palliser Novels Part 140

"He's a stupid sort of a fellow, and I think she was quite right," said Lizzie. "I'd never marry a man merely because I said I would. If I found I didn't like him, I'd leave him at the altar. If I found I didn't like him, I'd leave him even after the altar. I'd leave him any time I found I didn't like him. It's all very well to talk of aroma, but to live with a man you don't like - is the devil!"

"My dear, those whom G.o.d has joined together shouldn't be separated, - for any mere likings or dislikings." This Mrs. Carbuncle said in a high tone of moral feeling, just as the carriage stopped at the door in Hertford Street. They at once perceived that the hall-door was open, and Mrs. Carbuncle, as she crossed the pavement, saw that there were two policemen in the hall. The footman had been with them to the theatre, but the cook and housemaid, and Mrs. Carbuncle's own maid, were with the policemen in the pa.s.sage. She gave a little scream, and then Lizzie, who had followed her, seized her by the arm. She turned round and saw by the gas-light that Lizzie's face was white as a sheet, and that all the lines of her countenance were rigid and almost distorted. "Then she does know all about it!" said Mrs. Carbuncle to herself. Lizzie didn't speak, but still hung on to Mrs. Carbuncle's arm, and Lucinda, having seen how it was, was also supporting her. A policeman stepped forward and touched his hat. He was not Bunfit; - neither was he Gager. Indeed, though the ladies had not perceived the difference, he was not at all like Bunfit or Gager. This man was dressed in a policeman's uniform, whereas Bunfit and Gager always wore plain clothes. "My lady," said the policeman, addressing Mrs. Carbuncle, "there's been a robbery here."

"A robbery!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Carbuncle.

"Yes, my lady. The servants all out, - all to one; and she's off. They've taken jewels, and, no doubt, money, if there was any. They don't mostly come unless they know what they comes for."

With a horrid spasm across her heart, which seemed ready to kill her, so sharp was the pain, Lizzie recovered the use of her legs and followed Mrs. Carbuncle into the dining-room. She had been hardly conscious of hearing; but she had heard, and it had seemed to her that the robbery spoken of was something distinct from her own affair. The policemen did not speak of having found the diamonds. It was of something lost that they spoke. She seated herself in a chair against the wall, but did not utter a word. "We've been up-stairs, my lady, and they've been in most of the rooms. There's a desk broke open," - Lizzie gave an involuntary little scream; - "Yes, mum, a desk," continued the policeman turning to Lizzie, "and a bureau, and a dressing-case. What's gone your ladyship can tell when you sees. And one of the young women is off. It's she as done it." Then the cook explained. She and the housemaid, and Mrs. Carbuncle's lady's maid, had just stepped out, only round the corner, to get a little air, leaving Patience Crabstick in charge of the house; and when they came back, the area gate was locked against them, the front door was locked, and finding themselves unable to get in after many knockings, they had at last obtained the a.s.sistance of a policeman. He had got into the place over the area gate, had opened the front door from within, and then the robbery had been discovered. It was afterwards found that the servants had all gone out to what they called a tea-party, at a public-house in the neighbourhood, and that by previous agreement Patience Crabstick had remained in charge. When they came back Patience Crabstick was gone, and the desk, and bureau, and dressing-case, were found to have been opened. "She had a reg'lar thief along with her, my lady," said the policeman, still addressing himself to Mrs. Carbuncle, - "'cause of the way the things was opened."

"I always knew that young woman was downright bad," said Mrs. Carbuncle in her first expression of wrath.

But Lizzie sat in her chair without saying a word, still pale, with that almost awful look of agony in her face. Within ten minutes of their entering the house, Mrs. Carbuncle was making her way up-stairs, with the two policemen following her. That her bureau and her dressing-case should have been opened was dreadful to her, though the value that she could thus lose was very small. She also possessed diamonds, - but her diamonds were paste; and whatever jewellery she had of any value, - a few rings, and a brooch, and such like, - had been on her person in the theatre. What little money she had by her was in the drawing-room, and the drawing-room, as it seemed, had not been entered. In truth, all Mrs. Carbuncle's possessions in the house were not sufficient to have tempted a well-bred, well-instructed thief. But it behoved her to be indignant; and she could be indignant with grace, as the thief was discovered to be, not her maid, but Patience Crabstick. The policemen followed Mrs. Carbuncle, and the maids followed the policemen; but Lizzie Eustace kept her seat in the chair by the wall. "Do you think they have taken much of yours?" said Lucinda, coming up to her and speaking very gently. Lizzie made a motion with her two hands upon her heart, and struggled, and gasped, - as though she wished to speak but could not. "I suppose it is that girl who has done it all," said Lucinda. Lizzie nodded her head, and tried to smile. The attempt was so ghastly that Lucinda, though not timid by nature, was frightened. She sat down and took Lizzie's hand, and tried to comfort her. "It is very hard upon you," she said, "to be twice robbed." Lizzie again nodded her head. "I hope it is not much now. Shall we go up and see?" The poor creature did get upon her legs, but she gasped so terribly that Lucinda feared that she was dying. "Shall I send for some one?" she said. Lizzie made an effort to speak, was shaken convulsively while the other supported her, and then burst into a flood of tears.

When that had come she was relieved, and could again act her part. "Yes," she said, "we will go with them. It is so dreadful; - is it not?"

"Very dreadful; - but how much better that we weren't at home! Shall we go now?" Then together they followed the others, and on the stairs Lizzie explained that in her desk, of which she always carried the key round her neck, there was what money she had by her; - two ten-pound notes, and four five-pound notes, and three sovereigns; - in all, forty-three pounds. Her other jewels, - the jewels which she had possessed over and above the fatal diamond necklace, - were in her dressing-case. Patience, she did not doubt, had known that the money was there, and certainly knew of her jewels. So they went up-stairs. The desk was open and the money gone. Five or six rings and a bracelet had been taken also from Lizzie's dressing-case, which she had left open. Of Mrs. Carbuncle's property sufficient had been stolen to make a long list in that lady's handwriting. Lucinda Roanoke's room had not been entered, - as far as they could judge. The girl had taken the best of her own clothes, and a pair of strong boots belonging to the cook. A superintendent of police was there before they went to bed, and a list was made out. The superintendent was of opinion that the thing had been done very cleverly, but was of opinion that the thieves had expected to find more plunder. "They don't care so much about banknotes, my lady, because they fetches such a low price with them as they deal with. The three sovereigns is more to them than all the forty pounds in notes." The superintendent had heard of the diamond necklace, and expressed an opinion that poor Lady Eustace was especially marked out for misfortune. "It all comes of having such a girl as that about her," said Mrs. Carbuncle. The superintendent, who intended to be consolatory to Lizzie, expressed his opinion that it was very hard to know what a young woman was. "They looks as soft as b.u.t.ter, and they're as sly as foxes, and as quick, as quick - as quick as greased lightning, my lady." Such a piece of business as this which had just occurred, will make people intimate at a very short notice.

And so the diamond necklace, known to be worth ten thousand pounds, had at last been stolen in earnest! Lizzie, when the policemen were gone, and the noise was over, and the house was closed, slunk away to her bedroom, refusing any aid in lieu of that of the wicked Patience. She herself had examined the desk beneath the eyes of her two friends and of the policemen, and had seen at once that the case was gone. The money was gone too, as she was rejoiced to find. She perceived at once that had the money been left, - the very leaving of it would have gone to prove that other prize had been there. But the money was gone, - money of which she had given a correct account; - and she could now honestly allege that she had been robbed. But she had at last really lost her great treasure; - and if the treasure should be found, then would she infallibly be exposed. She had talked twice of giving away her necklace, and had seriously thought of getting rid of it by burying it deep in the sea. But now that it was in very truth gone from her, the loss of it was horrible to her. Ten thousand pounds, for which she had struggled so much and borne so many things, which had come to be the prevailing fact of her life, gone from her for ever! Nevertheless it was not that sorrow, that regret, which had so nearly overpowered her in the dining-parlour. At that moment she hardly knew, had hardly thought, whether the diamonds had or had not been taken. But the feeling came upon her at once that her own disgrace was every hour being brought nearer to her. Her secret was no longer quite her own. One man knew it, and he had talked to her of perjury and of five years' imprisonment. Patience must have known it, too; and now some one else also knew it. The police, of course, would find it out, and then horrid words would be used against her. She hardly knew what perjury was. It sounded like forgery and burglary. To stand up before a judge and be tried, - and then to be locked up for five years in prison - ! What an end would this be to all her glorious success? And what evil had she done to merit all this terrible punishment? When they came to her in her bedroom at Carlisle she had simply been too much frightened to tell them all that the necklace was at that moment under her pillow.

She tried to think of it all, and to form some idea in her mind of what might be the truth. Of course, Patience Crabstick had known her secret, but how long had the girl known it? And how had the girl discovered it? She was almost certain, from certain circ.u.mstances, from words which the girl had spoken, and from signs which she had observed, that Patience had not even suspected that the necklace had been brought with them from Carlisle to London. Of course, the coming of Bunfit and the woman would have set the girl's mind to work in that direction; but then Bunfit and the woman had only been there on that morning. The Corsair knew the facts, and no one but the Corsair. That the Corsair was a Corsair, the suspicions of the police had proved to her. She had offered the necklace to the Corsair; but when so offered, he had refused to take it. She could understand that he should see the danger of accepting the diamonds from her hand, and yet should be desirous of having them. And might not he have thought that he could best relieve her from the burthen of their custody in this manner? She felt no anger against the Corsair as she weighed the probability of his having taken them in this fashion. A Corsair must be a Corsair. Were he to come to her and confess the deed, she would almost like him the better for it, - admiring his skill and enterprise. But how very clever he must have been, and how brave! He had known, no doubt, that the three ladies were all going to the theatre; but in how short a time had he got rid of the other women and availed himself of the services of Patience Crabstick!

But in what way would she conduct herself when the police should come to her on the following morning, - the police and all the other people who would crowd to the house? How should she receive her cousin Frank? How should she look when the coincidence of the double robbery should be spoken of in her hearing? How should she bear herself when, as of course would be the case, she should again be taken before the magistrates, and made to swear as to the loss of her property? Must she commit more perjury, with the certainty that various people must know that her oath was false? All the world would suspect her. All the world would soon know the truth. Might it not be possible that the diamonds were at this moment in the hands of Messrs. Camperdown, and that they would be produced before her eyes, as soon as her second false oath had been registered against her? And yet how could she tell the truth? And what would the Corsair think of her, - the Corsair, who would know everything? She made one resolution during the night. She would not be taken into court. The magistrates and the people might come to her, but she would not go before them. When the morning came she said that she was ill, and refused to leave her bed. Policemen, she knew, were in the house early. At about nine Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda were up and in her room. The excitement of the affair had taken them from their beds, - but she would not stir. If it were absolutely necessary, she said, the men must come into her room. She had been so overset by what had occurred on the previous night, that she could not leave her room. She appealed to Lucinda as to the fact of her illness. The trouble of these robberies was so great upon her that her heart was almost broken. If her deposition must be taken, she would make it in bed. In the course of the day the magistrate did come into her room and the deposition was taken. Forty-three pounds had been taken from her desk, and certain jewels, which she described, from her dressing-case. As far as she was aware, no other property of hers was missing. This she said in answer to a direct question from the magistrate, which, as she thought, was asked with a stern voice and searching eye. And so, a second time, she had sworn falsely. But this at least was gained, - that Lord George de Bruce Carruthers was not looking at her as she swore.

Lord George was in the house for a great part of the day, but he did not ask to be admitted to Lizzie's room; - nor did she ask to see him. Frank Greystock was there late in the afternoon, and went up at once to his cousin. The moment that she saw him she stretched out her arms to him, and burst into tears. "My poor girl," said he, "what is the meaning of it all?"

"I don't know. I think they will kill me. They want to kill me. How can I bear it all? The robbers were here last night, and magistrates and policemen and people have been here all day." Then she fell into a fit of sobbing and wailing, which was, in truth, hysterical. For, - if the readers think of it, - the poor woman had a great deal to bear.

Frank, into whose mind no glimmer of suspicion against his cousin had yet entered, and who firmly believed that she had been made a victim because of the value of her diamonds, - and who had a theory of his own about the robbery at Carlisle, to the circ.u.mstances of which he was now at some pains to make these latter circ.u.mstances adhere, - was very tender with his cousin, and remained in the house for more than an hour. "Oh, Frank, what had I better do?" she asked him.

"I would leave London, if I were you."

"Yes; - of course. I will. Oh yes, I will!"

"If you don't fear the cold of Scotland - "

"I fear nothing, - nothing but being where these policemen can come to me. Oh!" - and then she shuddered and was again hysterical. Nor was she acting the condition. As she remembered the magistrates, and the detectives, and the policemen in their uniforms, - and reflected that she might probably see much more of them before the game was played out, the thoughts that crowded on her were almost more than she could bear.

"Your child is there, and it is your own house. Go there till all this pa.s.ses by." Whereupon she promised him that, as soon as she was well enough, she would at once go to Scotland.

In the meantime, the Eustace diamonds were locked up in a small safe fixed into the wall at the back of a small cellar beneath the establishment of Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, in Minto Lane, in the City. Messrs. Harter and Benjamin always kept a second place of business. Their great shop was at the West-end; but they had accommodation in the City.

The chronicler states this at once, as he scorns to keep from his reader any secret that is known to himself.

CHAPTER LIII.

Lizzie's Sick-Room When the Hertford Street robbery was three days old, and was still the talk of all the town, Lizzie Eustace was really ill. She had promised to go down to Scotland in compliance with the advice given to her by her cousin Frank, and at the moment of promising would have been willing enough to be transported at once to Portray, had that been possible - so as to be beyond the visits of policemen and the authority of lawyers and magistrates; but as the hours pa.s.sed over her head, and as her presence of mind returned to her, she remembered that even at Portray she would not be out of danger, and that she could do nothing in furtherance of her plans if once immured there. Lord George was in London, Frank Greystock was in London, and Lord Fawn was in London. It was more than ever necessary to her that she should find a husband among them, - a husband who would not be less her husband when the truth of that business at Carlisle should be known to all the world. She had, in fact, stolen nothing. She endeavoured to comfort herself by repeating to herself over and over again that a.s.surance. She had stolen nothing; and she still thought that if she could obtain the support of some strong arm on which to lean, she might escape punishment for those false oaths which she had sworn. Her husband might take her abroad, and the whole thing would die away. If she should succeed with Lord George, of course he would take her abroad, and there would be no need for any speedy return. They might roam among islands in pleasant warm suns, and the dreams of her youth might be realised. Her income was still her own. They could not touch that. So she thought, at least, - oppressed by some slight want of a.s.surance in that respect. Were she to go at once to Scotland, she must for the present give up that game altogether. If Frank would pledge himself to become her husband in three or four, or even in six months, she would go at once. She had more confidence in Frank than even in Lord George. As for love, - she would sometimes tell herself that she was violently in love; but she hardly knew with which. Lord George was certainly the best representative of that perfect Corsair which her dreams had represented to her; but, in regard to working life, she thought that she liked her cousin Frank better than she had ever yet liked any other human being. But, in truth, she was now in that condition, as she acknowledged to herself, that she was hardly ent.i.tled to choose. Lord Fawn had promised to marry her, and to him as a husband she conceived that she still had a right. Nothing had as yet been proved against her which could justify him in repudiating his engagement. She had, no doubt, a.s.serted with all vehemence to her cousin that no consideration would now induce her to give her hand to Lord Fawn; - and when making that a.s.surance she had been, after her nature, sincere. But circ.u.mstances were changed since that. She had not much hope that Lord Fawn might be made to succ.u.mb, - though evidence had reached her before the last robbery which induced her to believe that he did not consider himself to be quite secure. In these circ.u.mstances she was unwilling to leave London though she had promised, and was hardly sorry to find an excuse in her recognised illness.

And she was ill. Though her mind was again at work with schemes on which she would not have busied herself without hope, yet she had not recovered from the actual bodily prostration to which she had been compelled to give way when first told of the robbery on her return from the theatre. There had been moments then in which she thought that her heart would have broken, - moments in which, but that the power of speech was wanting, she would have told everything to Lucinda Roanoke. When Mrs. Carbuncle was marching up-stairs with the policemen at her heels she would have willingly sold all her hopes, Portray Castle, her lovers, her necklace, her income, her beauty, for any a.s.surance of the humblest security. With that quickness of intellect which was her peculiar gift, she had soon understood, in the midst of her sufferings, that her necklace had been taken by thieves whose robbery might a.s.sist her for a while in keeping her secret, rather than lead to the immediate divulging of it. Neither Camperdown nor Bunfit had been at work among the boxes. Her secret had been discovered, no doubt, by Patience Crabstick, and the diamonds were gone. But money also was taken, and the world need not know that the diamonds had been there. But Lord George knew. And then there arose to her that question: Had the diamonds been taken in consequence of that revelation to Lord George? It was not surprising that in the midst of all this Lizzie should be really ill.

She was most anxious to see Lord George; but, if what Mrs. Carbuncle said to her was true, Lord George refused to see her. She did not believe Mrs. Carbuncle, and was, therefore, quite in the dark about her Corsair. As she could only communicate with him through Mrs. Carbuncle, it might well be the case that he should have been told that he could not have access to her. Of course there were difficulties. That her cousin Frank should see her in her bedroom, - her cousin Frank, with whom it was essentially necessary that she should hold counsel as to her present great difficulties, - was a matter of course. There was no hesitation about that. A fresh nightcap, and a clean pocket-handkerchief with a bit of lace round it, and, perhaps, some pretty covering to her shoulders if she were to be required to sit up in bed, and the thing was arranged. He might have spent the best part of his days in her bedroom if he could have spared the time. But the Corsair was not a cousin, - nor as yet an acknowledged lover. There was difficulty even in framing a reason for her request, when she made it to Mrs. Carbuncle; and the very reason which she gave was handed back to her as the Corsair's reason for not coming to her. She desired to see him because he had been so much mixed up in the matter of these terrible robberies. But Mrs. Carbuncle declared to her that Lord George would not come to her because his name had been so frequently mentioned in connexion with the diamonds. "You see, my dear," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "there can be no real reason for his seeing you up in your bedroom. If there had been anything between you, as I once thought there would - " There was something in the tone of Mrs. Carbuncle's voice which grated on Lizzie's ear, - something which seemed to imply that all that prospect was over.

"Of course," said Lizzie querulously, "I am very anxious to know what he thinks. I care more about his opinion than anybody else's. As to his name being mixed up in it, - that is all a joke."

"It has been no joke to him, I can a.s.sure you," said Mrs. Carbuncle. Lizzie could not press her request. Of course, she knew more about it than did Mrs. Carbuncle. The secret was in her own bosom, - the secret as to the midnight robbery at Carlisle, and that secret she had told to Lord George. As to the robbery in London she knew nothing, - except that it had been perpetrated through the treachery of Patience Crabstick. Did Lord George know more about it than she knew? - and if so, was he now deterred by that knowledge from visiting her? "You see, my dear," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "that a gentleman visiting a lady with whom he has no connexion, in her bedroom, is in itself something very peculiar." Lizzie made a motion of impatience under the bedclothes. Any such argument was trash to her, and she knew that it was trash to Mrs. Carbuncle also. What was one man in her bedroom more than another? She could see a dozen doctors if she pleased, and if so, why not this man, whose real powers of doctoring her would be so much more efficacious? "You would want to see him alone, too," continued Mrs. Carbuncle, "and, of course, the police would hear of it. I am not at all surprised that he should stay away." Lizzie's condition did not admit of much argument on her side, and she only showed her opposition to Mrs. Carbuncle by being cross and querulous.

Frank Greystock came to her with great constancy almost every day, and from him she did hear about the robbery all that he knew or heard. When three days had pa.s.sed, - when six days, and even when ten days were gone, n.o.body had been as yet arrested. The police, according to Frank, were much on the alert, but were very secret. They either would not, or could not, tell anything. To him the two robberies, that at Carlisle and the last affair in Hertford Street, were of course distinct. There were those who believed that the Hertford Street thieves and the Carlisle thieves were not only the same, but that they had been in quest of the same plunder, - and had at last succeeded. But Frank was not one of these. He never for a moment doubted that the diamonds had been taken at Carlisle, and explained the second robbery by the supposition that Patience Crabstick had been emboldened by success. The iron box had no doubt been taken by her a.s.sistance, and her familiarity with the thieves, then established, had led to the second robbery. Lizzie's loss in that second robbery had amounted to some hundred pounds. This was Frank Greystock's theory, and of course it was one very comfortable to Lizzie.

"They all seem to think that the diamonds are at Paris," he said to her one day.

"If you only knew how little I care about them. It seems as though I had almost forgotten them in these after troubles."

"Mr. Camperdown cares about them. I'm told he says that he can make you pay for them out of your jointure."

"That would be very terrible, of course," said Lizzie, to whose mind there was something consolatory in the idea that the whole affair of the robbery might perhaps remain so mysterious as to remove her from the danger of other punishment than this.

"I feel sure that he couldn't do it," said Frank, "and I don't think he'll try it. John Eustace would not let him. It would be persecution."

"Mr. Camperdown has always chosen to persecute me," said Lizzie.

"I can understand that he shouldn't like the loss of the diamonds. I don't think, Lizzie, you ever realised their true value."

"I suppose not. After all, a necklace is only a necklace. I cared nothing for it, - except that I could not bear the idea that that man should dictate to me. I would have given it up at once, at the slightest word from you." He did not care to remind her then, as she lay in bed, that he had been very urgent in his advice to her to abandon the diamonds, - and not the less urgent because he had thought that the demand for them was unjust. "I told you often," she continued, "that I was tempted to throw them among the waves. It was true; - quite true. I offered to give them to you, and should have been delighted to have been relieved from them."

"That was, of course, simply impossible."

"I know it was; - impossible on your part; but I would have been delighted. Of what use were they to me? I wore them twice because that man," - meaning Lord Fawn, - "disputed my right to them. Before that I never even looked at them. Do you think I had pleasure in wearing them, or pleasure in looking at them? Never. They were only a trouble to me. It was a point of honour with me to keep them, because I was attacked. But I am glad they are gone, - thoroughly glad." This was all very well, and was not without its effect on Frank Greystock. It is hardly expected of a woman in such a condition, with so many troubles on her mind, who had been so persecuted, that every word uttered by her should be strictly true. Lizzie, with her fresh nightcap, and her laced handkerchief, pale, and with her eyes just glittering with tears, was very pretty. "Didn't somebody once give some one a garment which scorched him up when he wore it, - some woman who sent it because she loved the man so much?"

"The shirt, you mean, which Dejanira sent to Hercules. Yes; - Hercules was a good deal scorched."

"And that necklace, which my husband gave me because he loved me so well, has scorched me horribly. It has nearly killed me. It has been like the white elephant which the Eastern king gives to his subject when he means to ruin him. Only poor Florian didn't mean to hurt me. He gave it all in love. If these people bring a lawsuit against me, Frank, you must manage it for me."

"There will be no lawsuit. Your brother-in-law will stop it."

"I wonder who will really get the diamonds after all, Frank? They were very valuable. Only think that the ten thousand pounds should disappear in such a way!" The subject was a very dangerous one, but there was a fascination about it which made it impossible for her to refrain from it.

"A dishonest dealer in diamonds will probably realise the plunder, - after some years. There would be something very alluring in the theft of articles of great value, were it not that, when got, they at once become almost valueless by the difficulty of dealing with them. Supposing I had the necklace!"

"I wish you had, Frank."

"I could do nothing with it. Ten sovereigns would go further with me, - or ten shillings. The burthen of possessing it would in itself be almost more than I could bear. The knowledge that I had the thing, and might be discovered in having it, would drive me mad. By my own weakness I should be compelled to tell my secret to some one. And then I should never sleep for fear my partner in the matter should turn against me." How well she understood it all! How probable it was that Lord George should turn against her! How exact was Frank's description of that burthen of a secret so heavy that it cannot be borne alone! "A little reflection," continued Frank, "soon convinces a man that rough downright stealing is an awkward, foolish trade; and it therefore falls into the hands of those who want education for the higher efforts of dishonesty. To get into a bank at midnight and steal what little there may be in the till, or even an armful of bank-notes, with the probability of a policeman catching you as you creep out of the chimney and through a hole, is clumsy work; but to walk in amidst the smiles and bows of admiring managers and draw out money over the counter by thousands and tens of thousands, which you have never put in and which you can never repay, and which, when all is done, you have only borrowed; - that is a great feat."

"Do you really think so?"

"The courage, the ingenuity, and the self-confidence needed are certainly admirable. And then there is a cringing and almost contemptible littleness about honesty, which hardly allows it to a.s.sert itself. The really honest man can never say a word to make those who don't know of his honesty believe that it is there. He has one foot in the grave before his neighbours have learned that he is possessed of an article for the use of which they would so willingly have paid, could they have been made to see that it was there. The dishonest man almost doubts whether in him dishonesty is dishonest, let it be practised ever so widely. The honest man almost doubts whether his honesty be honest, unless it be kept hidden. Let two unknown men be compet.i.tors for any place, with nothing to guide the judges but their own words and their own looks, and who can doubt but the dishonest man would be chosen rather than the honest? Honesty goes about with a hang-dog look about him, as though knowing that he cannot be trusted till he be proved. Dishonesty carries his eyes high, and a.s.sumes that any question respecting him must be considered to be unnecessary."

"Oh, Frank, what a philosopher you are."

"Well, yes; meditating about your diamonds has brought my philosophy out. When do you think you will go to Scotland?"

"I am hardly strong enough for the journey yet. I fear the cold so much."

"You would not find it cold there by the sea-side. To tell you the truth, Lizzie, I want to get you out of this house. I don't mean to say a word against Mrs. Carbuncle; but after all that has occurred, it would be better that you should be away. People talk about you and Lord George."

"How can I help it, Frank?"

"By going away; - that is, if I may presume one thing. I don't want to pry into your secrets."

"I have none from you."

"Unless there be truth in the a.s.sertion that you are engaged to marry Lord George Carruthers."

"There is no truth in it."

"And you do not wish to stay here in order that there may be an engagement? I am obliged to ask you home questions, Lizzie, as I could not otherwise advise you."

"You do, indeed, ask home questions."

"I will desist at once, if they be disagreeable."

"Frank, you are false to me!" As she said this she rose in her bed, and sat with her eyes fixed upon his, and her thin hands stretched out upon the bedclothes. "You know that I cannot wish to be engaged to him or to any other man. You know, better almost than I can know myself, how my heart stands. There has, at any rate, been no hypocrisy with me in regard to you. Everything has been told to you; - at what cost I will not now say. The honest woman, I fear, fares worse even than the honest man of whom you spoke. I think you admitted that he would be appreciated at last. She to her dying day must pay the penalty of her transgressions. Honesty in a woman the world never forgives." When she had done speaking, he sat silent by her bedside, but, almost unconsciously, he stretched out his left hand and took her right hand in his. For a few seconds she admitted this, and she lay there with their hands clasped. Then with a start she drew back her arm, and retreated as it were from his touch. "How dare you," she said, "press my hand, when you know that such pressure from you is treacherous and d.a.m.nable!"

"d.a.m.nable, Lizzie!"

"Yes; - d.a.m.nable. I will not pick my words for you. Coming from you, what does such pressure mean?"

"Affection."

"Yes; - and of what sort? You are wicked enough to feed my love by such tokens, when you know that you do not mean to return it. Oh, Frank, Frank, will you give me back my heart? What was it that you promised me when we sat together upon the rocks at Portray?"

It is inexpressibly difficult for a man to refuse the tender of a woman's love. We may almost say that a man should do so as a matter of course, - that the thing so offered becomes absolutely valueless by the offer, - that the woman who can make it has put herself out of court by her own abandonment of the privileges due to her as a woman, - that stern rebuke and even expressed contempt are justified by such conduct, - and that the fairest beauty and most alluring charms of feminine grace should lose their attraction when thus tendered openly in the market. No doubt such is our theory as to love and love-making. But the action to be taken by us in matters as to which the plainest theory prevails for the guidance of our practice, depends so frequently on accompanying circ.u.mstances and correlative issues, that the theory, as often as not, falls to the ground. Frank could not despise this woman, and could not be stern to her. He could not bring himself to tell her boldly that he would have nothing to say to her in the way of love. He made excuses for her, and persuaded himself that there were peculiar circ.u.mstances in her position justifying unwomanly conduct, although, had he examined himself on the subject, he would have found it difficult to say what those circ.u.mstances were. She was rich, beautiful, clever, - and he was flattered. Nevertheless he knew that he could not marry her; - and he knew also that much as he liked her he did not love her. "Lizzie," he said, "I think you hardly understand my position."

"Yes, I do. That little girl has cozened you out of a promise."

"If it be so, you would not have me break it."

"Yes, I would, if you think she is not fit to be your wife. Is a man such as you are, to be tied by the leg for life, have all his ambition clipped, and his high hopes shipwrecked, because a girl has been clever enough to extract a word from him? Is it not true that you are in debt?"

"What of that? At any rate, Lizzie, I do not want help from you."

"That is so like a man's pride! Do we not all know that in such a career as you have marked out for yourself, wealth, or at any rate an easy income, is necessary? Do you think that I cannot put two and two together? Do you believe so meanly of me as to imagine that I should have said to you what I have said, if I did not know that I could help you? A man, I believe, cannot understand that love which induces a woman to sacrifice her pride simply for his advantage. I want to see you prosper. I want to see you a great man and a lord, and I know that you cannot become so without an income. Ah, I wish I could give you all that I have got, and save you from the enc.u.mbrance that is attached to it!"

It might be that he would then have told her of his engagement to Lucy, and of his resolution to adhere to that promise, had not Mrs. Carbuncle at that moment entered the room. Frank had been there for above an hour, and as Lizzie was still an invalid, and to some extent under the care of Mrs. Carbuncle, it was natural that that lady should interfere. "You know, my dear, you should not exhaust yourself altogether. Mr. Emilius is to come to you this afternoon."

"Mr. Emilius!" said Greystock.

"Yes; - the clergyman. Don't you remember him at Portray? A dark man with eyes close together! You used to be very wicked, and say that he was once a Jew-boy in the streets." Lizzie, as she spoke of her spiritual guide, was evidently not desirous of doing him much honour.

"I remember him well enough. He made sheep's eyes at Miss Macnulty, and drank a great deal of wine at dinner."

"Poor Macnulty! I don't believe a word about the wine; and as for Macnulty, I don't see why she should not be converted as well as another. He is coming here to read to me. I hope you don't object."

"Not in the least; - if you like it."

"One does have solemn thoughts sometimes, Frank, - especially when one is ill."

"Oh, yes. Well or ill, one does have solemn thoughts; - ghosts, as it were, which will appear. But is Mr. Emilius good at laying such apparitions?"

"He is a clergyman, Mr. Greystock," said Mrs. Carbuncle, with something of rebuke in her voice.

"So they tell me. I was not present at his ordination, but I daresay it was done according to rule. When one reflects what a deal of harm a bishop may do, one wishes that there was some surer way of getting bishops."

"Do you know anything against Mr. Emilius?" asked Lizzie.

"Nothing at all but his looks, and manners, and voice, - unless it be that he preaches popular sermons, and drinks too much wine, and makes sheep's eyes at Miss Macnulty. Look after your silver spoons, Mrs. Carbuncle, - if the last thieves have left you any. You were asking after the fate of your diamonds, Lizzie. Perhaps they will endow a Protestant church in Mr. Emilius's native land."

Mr. Emilius did come and read to Lady Eustace that afternoon. A clergyman is as privileged to enter the bedroom of a sick lady as is a doctor or a cousin. There was another clean cap, and another laced handkerchief, and on this occasion a little shawl over Lizzie's shoulders. Mr. Emilius first said a prayer, kneeling at Lizzie's bedside; then he read a chapter in the Bible; - and after that he read the first half of the fourth canto of Childe Harold so well, that Lizzie felt for the moment that after all, poetry was life and life was poetry.

CHAPTER LIV.

"I Suppose I May Say a Word"

The second robbery to which Lady Eustace had been subjected by no means decreased the interest which was attached to her and her concerns in the fashionable world. Parliament had now met, and the party at Matching Priory, - Lady Glencora Palliser's party in the country, - had been to some extent broken up. All those gentlemen who were engaged in the service of Her Majesty's Government had necessarily gone to London, and they who had wives at Matching had taken their wives with them. Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen had seen the last of their holiday; Mr. Palliser himself was, of course, at his post; and all the private secretaries were with the public secretaries on the scene of action. On the 13th of February Mr. Palliser made his first great statement in Parliament on the matter of the five-farthinged penny, and pledged himself to do his very best to carry that stupendous measure through Parliament in the present session. The City men who were in the House that night, - and all the Directors of the Bank of England were in the gallery, and every chairman of a great banking company, and every Baring and every Rothschild, if there be Barings and Rothschilds who have not been returned by const.i.tuencies, and have not seats in the House by right, - agreed in declaring that the job in hand was too much for any one member or any one session. Some said that such a measure never could be pa.s.sed, because the unfinished work of one session could not be used in lessening the labours of the next. Everything must be recommenced; and therefore, - so said these hopeless ones, - the penny with five farthings, the penny of which a hundred would make ten shillings, the halcyon penny, which would make all future pecuniary calculations easy to the meanest British capacity, could never become the law of the land. Others, more hopeful, were willing to believe that gradually the thing would so sink into the minds of members of Parliament, of writers of leading articles, and of the active public generally, as to admit of certain established axioms being taken as established, and placed, as it were, beyond the procrastinating power of debate. It might, for instance, at last be taken for granted that a decimal system was desirable, - so that a month or two of the spring need not be consumed on that preliminary question. But this period had not as yet been reached, and it was thought by the entire City that Mr. Palliser was much too sanguine. It was so probable, many said, that he might kill himself by labour which would be Herculean in all but success, and that no financier after him would venture to face the task. It behoved Lady Glencora to see that her Hercules did not kill himself.

In this state of affairs Lady Glencora, - into whose hands the custody of Mr. Palliser's uncle, the duke, had now altogether fallen, - had a divided duty between Matching and London. When the members of Parliament went up to London, she went there also, leaving some half-dozen friends whom she could trust to amuse the duke; but she soon returned, knowing that there might be danger in a long absence. The duke, though old, was his own master; he much affected the company of Madame Goesler, and that lady's kindness to him was considerate and incessant; but there might still be danger, and Lady Glencora felt that she was responsible that the old n.o.bleman should do nothing, in the feebleness of age, to derogate from the splendour of his past life. What if some day his grace should be off to Paris and insist on making Madame Goesler a d.u.c.h.ess in the chapel of the Emba.s.sy! Madame Goesler had hitherto behaved very well; - would probably continue to behave well. Lady Glencora really loved Madame Goesler. But then the interests at stake were very great! So circ.u.mstanced, Lady Glencora found herself compelled to be often on the road between Matching and London.

But though she was burthened with great care, Lady Glencora by no means dropped her interest in the Eustace diamonds; and when she learned that on the top of the great Carlisle robbery a second robbery had been superadded, and that this had been achieved while all the London police were yet astray about the former operation, her solicitude was of course enhanced. The duke himself, too, took the matter up so strongly, that he almost wanted to be carried up to London, with some view, as it was supposed by the ladies who were so good to him, of seeing Lady Eustace personally. "It's out of the question, my dear," Lady Glencora said to Madame Goesler, when the duke's fancy was first mentioned to her by that lady. "I told him that the trouble would be too much for him." "Of course it would be too much," said Lady Glencora. "It is quite out of the question." Then, after a moment, she added in a whisper, "Who knows but what he'd insist on marrying her! It isn't every woman that can resist temptation." Madame Goesler smiled, and shook her head, but made no answer to Lady Glencora's suggestion. Lady Glencora a.s.sured her uncle that everything should be told to him. She would write about it daily, and send him the latest news by the wires if the post should be too slow. "Ah; - yes," said the duke; "I like telegrams best. I think, you know, that that Lord George Carruthers has had something to do with it. Don't you, Madame Goesler?" It had long been evident that the duke was anxious that one of his own order should be proved to have been the thief, as the plunder taken was so lordly.

In regard to Lizzie herself, Lady Glencora, on her return to London, took it into her head to make a diversion in our heroine's favour. It had hitherto been a matter of faith with all the Liberal party that Lady Eustace had had something to do with stealing her own diamonds. That esprit de corps which is the glorious characteristic of English statesmen had caused the whole Government to support Lord Fawn, and Lord Fawn could only be supported on the supposition that Lizzie Eustace had been a wicked culprit. But Lady Glencora, though very true as a politician, was apt to have opinions of her own, and to take certain flights in which she chose that others of the party should follow her. She now expressed an opinion that Lady Eustace was a victim, and all the Mrs. Bonteens, with some even of the Mr. Bonteens, found themselves compelled to agree with her. She stood too high among her set to be subject to that obedience which restrained others, - too high, also, for others to resist her leading. As a member of a party she was erratic and dangerous, but from her position and peculiar temperament she was powerful. When she declared that poor Lady Eustace was a victim, others were obliged to say so too. This was particularly hard upon Lord Fawn, and the more so as Lady Glencora took upon her to a.s.sert that Lord Fawn had no right to jilt the young woman. And Lady Glencora had this to support her views, - that, for the last week past, indeed ever since the depositions which had been taken after the robbery in Hertford Street, the police had expressed no fresh suspicions in regard to Lizzie Eustace. She heard daily from Barrington Erle that Major Mackintosh and Bunfit and Gager were as active as ever in their inquiries, that all Scotland Yard was determined to unravel the mystery, and that there were emissaries at work tracking the diamonds at Hamburg, Paris, Vienna, and New York. It had been whispered to Mr. Erle that the whereabouts of Patience Crabstick had been discovered, and that many of the leading thieves in London were a.s.sisting the police; - but nothing more was done in the way of fixing any guilt upon Lizzie Eustace. "Upon my word, I am beginning to think that she has been more sinned against than sinning." This was said to Lady Glencora on the morning after Mr. Palliser's great speech about the five farthings, by Barrington Erle, who, as it seemed, had been specially told off by the party to watch this investigation.

"I am sure she has had nothing to do with it. I have thought so ever since the last robbery. Sir Simon Slope told me yesterday afternoon that Mr. Camperdown has given it up altogether." Sir Simon Slope was the Solicitor-General of that day.

"It would be absurd for him to go on with his bill in Chancery now that the diamonds are gone, - unless he meant to make her pay for them."

"That would be rank persecution. Indeed, she has been persecuted. I shall call upon her." Then she wrote the following letter to the duke: - February 14, 18.

My dear Duke, Plantagenet was on his legs last night for three hours and three quarters, and I sat through it all. As far as I could observe through the bars I was the only person in the House who listened to him. I'm sure Mr. Gresham was fast asleep. It was quite piteous to see some of them yawning. Plantagenet did it very well, and I almost think I understood him. They seem to say that n.o.body on the other side will take trouble enough to make a regular opposition, but that there are men in the City who will write letters to the newspapers, and get up a sort of Bank clamour. Plantagenet says nothing about it, but there is a do-or-die manner with him which is quite tragical. The House was up at eleven, when he came home and eat three oysters, drank a gla.s.s of beer, and slept well. They say the real work will come when it's in Committee; - that is, if it gets there. The bill is to be brought in, and will be read the first time next Monday week.