The Eustace Diamonds Part 78

"And it was very terrible. And then, I had been threatened with a lawsuit. You have heard that, too?"

"Yes,--I had heard it."

"I believe they have given that up now. I understand from my cousin, Mr. Greystock, who has been my truest friend in all my troubles, that the stupid people have found out at last that they had not a leg to stand on. I daresay you have heard that, Lord Fawn?"

Lord Fawn certainly had heard, in a doubtful way, the gist of Mr.

Dove's opinion, namely, that the necklace could not be claimed from the holder of it as an heirloom attached to the Eustace family. But he had heard at the same time that Mr. Camperdown was as confident as ever that he could recover the property by claiming it after another fas.h.i.+on. Whether or no that claim had been altogether abandoned, or had been allowed to fall into abeyance because of the absence of the diamonds, he did not know, nor did any one know,--Mr. Camperdown himself having come to no decision on the subject. But Lord Fawn had been aware that his sister had of late s.h.i.+fted the ground of her inveterate enmity to Lizzie Eustace, making use of the scene which Mr. Gowran had witnessed, in lieu of the lady's rapacity in regard to the necklace. It might therefore be a.s.sumed, Lord Fawn thought and feared, that his strong ground in regard to the necklace had been cut from under his feet. But still, it did not behove him to confess that the cause which he had always alleged as the ground for his retreat from the engagement was no cause at all. It might go hard with him should an attempt be made to force him to name another cause. He knew that he would lack the courage to tell the lady that he had heard from his sister that one Andy Gowran had witnessed a terrible scene down among the rocks at Portray. So he sat silent, and made no answer to Lizzie's first a.s.sertion respecting the diamonds.

But the necklace was her strong point, and she did not intend that he should escape the subject. "If I remember right, Lord Fawn, you yourself saw that wretched old attorney once or twice on the subject?"

"I did see Mr. Camperdown, certainly. He is my own family lawyer."

"You were kind enough to interest yourself about the diamonds,--were you not?" She asked him this as a question, and then waited for a reply. "Was it not so?"

"Yes, Lady Eustace; it was so."

"They were of great value, and it was natural," continued Lizzie.

"Of course you interested yourself. Mr. Camperdown was full of awful threats against me;--was he not? I don't know what he was not going to do. He stopped me in the street as I was driving to the station in my own carriage, when the diamonds were with me;--which was a very strong measure, I think. And he wrote me ever so many,--oh, such horrid letters. And he went about telling everybody that it was an heirloom;--didn't he? You know all that, Lord Fawn?"

"I know that he wanted to recover them."

"And did he tell you that he went to a real lawyer,--somebody who really knew about it, Mr. Turbot, or Turtle, or some such name as that, and the real lawyer told him that he was all wrong, and that the necklace couldn't be an heirloom at all, because it belonged to me, and that he had better drop his lawsuit altogether? Did you hear that?"

"No;--I did not hear that."

"Ah, Lord Fawn, you dropped your inquiries just at the wrong place.

No doubt you had too many things to do in Parliament and the Government to go on with them; but if you had gone on, you would have learned that Mr. Camperdown had just to give it up,--because he had been wrong from beginning to end." Lizzie's words fell from her with extreme rapidity, and she had become almost out of breath from the effects of her own energy.

Lord Fawn felt strongly the necessity of clinging to the diamonds as his one great and sufficient justification. "I thought," said he, "that Mr. Camperdown had abandoned his action for the present because the jewels had been stolen."

"Not a bit of it," said Lizzie, rising suddenly to her legs. "Who says so? Who dares to say so? Whoever says so is--is a storyteller. I understand all about that. The action could go on just the same, and I could be made to pay for the necklace out of my own income if it hadn't been my own. I am sure, Lord Fawn, such a clever man as you, and one who has always been in the Government and in Parliament, can see that. And will anybody believe that such an enemy as Mr.

Camperdown has been to me, persecuting me in every possible way, telling lies about me to everybody,--who tried to prevent my dear, darling husband from marrying me,--that he wouldn't go on with it if he could?"

"Mr. Camperdown is a very respectable man, Lady Eustace."

"Respectable! Talk to me of respectable after all that he has made me suffer! As you were so fond of making inquiries, Lord Fawn, you ought to have gone on with them. You never would believe what my cousin said."

"Your cousin always behaved very badly to me."

"My cousin, who is a brother rather than a cousin, has known how to protect me from the injuries done to me,--or, rather, has known how to take my part when I have been injured. My lord, as you have been unwilling to believe him, why have you not gone to that gentleman who, as I say, is a real lawyer? I don't know, my lord, that it need have concerned you at all, but as you began, you surely should have gone on with it. Don't you think so?" She was still standing up, and, small as was her stature, was almost menacing the unfortunate Under-Secretary of State, who was still seated in his chair. "My lord," continued Lizzie, "I have had great wrong done me."

"Do you mean by me?"

"Yes, by you. Who else has done it?"

"I do not think that I have done wrong to any one. I was obliged to say that I could not recognise those diamonds as the property of my wife."

"But what right had you to say so? I had the diamonds when you asked me to be your wife."

"I did not know it."

"Nor did you know that I had this little ring upon my finger. Is it fit that you, or that any man should turn round upon a lady and say to her that your word is to be broken, and that she is to be exposed before all her friends, because you have taken a fancy to dislike her ring or her brooch? I say, Lord Fawn, it was no business of yours, even after you were engaged to me. What jewels I might have, or not have, was no concern of yours till after I had become your wife.

Go and ask all the world if it is not so? You say that my cousin affronts you because he takes my part,--like a brother. Ask any one else. Ask any lady you may know. Let us name some one to decide between us which of us has been wrong. Lady Glencora Palliser is a friend of yours, and her husband is in the Government. Shall we name her? It is true, indeed, that her uncle, the Duke of Omnium, the grandest and greatest of English n.o.blemen, is specially interested on my behalf." This was very fine in Lizzie. The Duke of Omnium she had never seen; but his name had been mentioned to her by Lady Glencora, and she was quick to use it.

"I can admit of no reference to any one," said Lord Fawn.

"And I then,--what am I to do? I am to be thrown over simply because your lords.h.i.+p--chooses to throw me over? Your lords.h.i.+p will admit no reference to any one! Your lords.h.i.+p makes inquiries as long as an attorney tells you stories against me, but drops them at once when the attorney is made to understand that he is wrong. Tell me this, sir. Can you justify yourself,--in your own heart?"

Unfortunately for Lord Fawn, he was not sure that he could justify himself. The diamonds were gone, and the action was laid aside, and the general opinion which had prevailed a month or two since, that Lizzie had been disreputably concerned in stealing her own necklace, seemed to have been laid aside. Lady Glencora and the duke went for almost as much with Lord Fawn as they did with Lizzie. No doubt the misbehaviour down among the rocks was left to him; but he had that only on the evidence of Andy Gowran,--and even Andy Gowran's evidence he had declined to receive otherwise than second-hand. Lizzie, too, was prepared with an answer to this charge,--an answer which she had already made more than once, though the charge was not positively brought against her, and which consisted in an a.s.sertion that Frank Greystock was her brother rather than her cousin. Such brotherhood was not altogether satisfactory to Lord Fawn, when he came once more to regard Lizzie Eustace as his possible future wife; but still the a.s.sertion was an answer, and one that he could not altogether reject.

It certainly was the case that he had again begun to think what would be the result of a marriage with Lady Eustace. He must sever himself altogether from Mrs. Hittaway, and must relax the closeness of his relations with Fawn Court. He would have a wife respecting whom he himself had spread evil tidings, and the man whom he most hated in the world would be his wife's favourite cousin, or, so to say,--brother. He would, after a fas.h.i.+on, be connected with Mrs.

Carbuncle, Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, and Sir Griffin Tewett, all of whom he regarded as thoroughly disreputable. And, moreover, at his own country house at Portray, as in such case it would be, his own bailiff or steward would be the man who had seen--what he had seen. These were great objections; but how was he to avoid marrying her? He was engaged to her. How, at any rate, was he to escape from the renewal of his engagement at this moment? He had more than once positively stated that he was deterred from marrying her only by her possession of the diamonds. The diamonds were now gone.

Lizzie was still standing, waiting for an answer to her question,--Can you justify yourself in your own heart? Having paused for some seconds, she repeated her question in a stronger and more personal form. "Had I been your sister, Lord Fawn, and had another man behaved to me as you have now done, would you say that he had behaved well, and that she had no ground for complaint? Can you bring yourself to answer that question honestly?"

"I hope I shall answer no question dishonestly."

"Answer it then. No; you cannot answer it, because you would condemn yourself. Now, Lord Fawn, what do you mean to do?"

"I had thought, Lady Eustace, that any regard which you might ever have entertained for me--"

"Well;--what had you thought of my regard?"

"That it had been dissipated."

"Have I told you so? Has any one come to you from me with such a message?"

"Have you not received attentions from any one else?"

"Attentions,--what attentions? I have received plenty of attentions,--most flattering attentions. I was honoured even this morning by a most gratifying attention on the part of his grace the Duke of Omnium."

"I did not mean that."

"What do you mean, then? I am not going to marry the Duke of Omnium because of his attention,--nor any one else. If you mean, sir, after the other inquiries you have done me the honour to make, to throw it in my face now, that I have--have in any way rendered myself unworthy of the position of your wife because people have been civil and kind to me in my sorrow, you are a greater dastard than I took you to be.

Tell me at once, sir, whom you mean."

It is hardly too much to say that the man quailed before her. And it certainly is not too much to say that, had Lizzie Eustace been trained as an actress, she would have become a favourite with the town. When there came to her any fair scope for acting, she was perfect. In the ordinary scenes of ordinary life, such as befell her during her visit to Fawn Court, she could not acquit herself well.

There was no reality about her, and the want of it was strangely plain to most un.o.bservant eyes. But give her a part to play that required exaggerated, strong action, and she hardly ever failed. Even in that terrible moment, when, on her return from the theatre, she thought that the police had discovered her secret about the diamonds, though she nearly sank through fear, she still carried on her acting in the presence of Lucinda Roanoke; and when she had found herself constrained to tell the truth to Lord George Carruthers, the power to personify a poor, weak, injured creature was not wanting to her.

The reader will not think that her position in society at the present moment was very well established,--will feel, probably, that she must still have known herself to be on the brink of social ruin. But she had now fully worked herself up to the necessities of the occasion, and was as able to play her part as well as any actress that ever walked the boards. She had called him a dastard, and now stood looking him in the face. "I didn't mean anybody in particular," said Lord Fawn.

"Then what right can you have to ask me whether I have received attentions? Had it not been for the affectionate attention of my cousin, Mr. Greystock, I should have died beneath the load of sorrow you have heaped upon me!" This she said quite boldly, and yet the man she named was he of whom Andy Gowran told his horrid story, and whose love-making to Lizzie had, in Mrs. Hittaway's opinion, been sufficient to atone for any falling off of strength in the matter of the diamonds.

"A rumour reached me," said Lord Fawn, plucking up his courage, "that you were engaged to marry your cousin."

"Then rumour lied, my lord. And he or she who repeated the rumour to you, lied also. And any he or she who repeats it again will go on with the lie." Lord Fawn's brow became very black. The word "lie"

itself was offensive to him,--offensive, even though it might not be applied directly to himself; but he still quailed, and was unable to express his indignation,--as he had done to poor Lucy Morris, his mother's governess. "And now let me ask, Lord Fawn, on what ground you and I stand together. When my friend, Lady Glencora, asked me, only this morning, whether my engagement with you was still an existing fact, and brought me the kindest possible message on the same subject from her uncle, the duke, I hardly knew what answer to make her." It was not surprising that Lizzie in her difficulties should use her new friend, but perhaps she over-did the friends.h.i.+p a little. "I told her that we were engaged, but that your lords.h.i.+p's conduct to me had been so strange, that I hardly knew how to speak of you among my friends."

"I thought I explained myself to your cousin."