The Palliser Novels Part 146

"Nor would I, - willingly. He is honest and respectable; and in spite of all that has come and gone would, I think, behave well to a woman when she was once his wife. Of course, I would prefer to marry a man that I could love. But if that is impossible, Frank - "

"I thought that you had determined that you would have nothing to do with this lord."

"I thought so too. Frank, you have known all that I have thought, and all that I have wished. You talk to me of marrying where my heart has been given. Is it possible that I should do so?"

"How am I to say?"

"Come, Frank, be true with me. I am forcing myself to speak truth to you. I think that between you and me, at any rate, there should be no words spoken that are not true. Frank, you know where my heart is." As she said this, she stood over him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder. "Will you answer me one question?"

"If I can, I will."

"Are you engaged to marry Lucy Morris?"

"I am."

"And you intend to marry her?" To this question he made no immediate answer. "We are old enough now, Frank, to know that something more than what you call heart is wanted to make us happy when we marry. I will say nothing hard of Lucy, though she be my rival."

"You can say nothing hard of her. She is perfect."

"We will let that pa.s.s, though it is hardly kind of you, just at the present moment. Let her be perfect. Can you marry this perfection without a sixpence, - you that are in debt, and who never could save a sixpence in your life? Would it be for her good, - or for yours? You have done a foolish thing, sir, and you know that you must get out of it."

"I know nothing of the kind."

"You cannot marry Lucy Morris. That is the truth. My present need makes me bold. Frank, shall I be your wife? Such a marriage will not be without love, at any rate on one side, - though there be utter indifference on the other!"

"You know I am not indifferent to you," said he, with wicked weakness.

"Now, at any rate," she continued, "you must understand what must be my answer to Lord Fawn. It is you that must answer Lord Fawn. If my heart is to be broken, I may as well break it under his roof as another."

"I have no roof to offer you," he said.

"But I have one for you," she said, throwing her arm round his neck. He bore her embrace for a minute, returning it with the pressure of his arm; and then, escaping from it, seized his hat and left her standing in the room.

CHAPTER LXIII.

The Corsair Is Afraid On the following morning, - Monday morning, - there appeared in one of the daily newspapers the paragraph of which Lady Linlithgow had spoken to Lucy Morris. "We are given to understand," - newspapers are very frequently given to understand, - "that a man well-known to the London police as an accomplished housebreaker has been arrested in reference to the robbery which was effected on the 30th of January last at Lady Eustace's house in Hertford Street. No doubt the same person was concerned in the robbery of her ladys.h.i.+p's jewels at Carlisle on the night of the 8th of January. The mystery which has so long enveloped these two affairs, and which has been so discreditable to the metropolitan police, will now probably be cleared up." There was not a word about Patience Crabstick in this; and, as Lizzie observed, the news brought by the policeman on Sat.u.r.day night referred only to Patience, and said nothing of the arrest of any burglar. The ladies in Hertford Street scanned the sentence with the greatest care, and Mrs. Carbuncle was very angry because the house was said to be Lizzie's house. "It wasn't my doing," said Lizzie.

"The policeman came to you about it."

"I didn't say a word to the man, - and I didn't want him to come."

"I hope it will be all found out now," said Lucinda.

"I wish it were all clean forgotten," said Lizzie.

"It ought to be found out," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "But the police should be more careful in what they say. I suppose we shall all have to go before the magistrates again."

Poor Lizzie felt that fresh trouble was certainly coming upon her. She had learned now that the crime for which she might be prosecuted and punished was that of perjury, - that even if everything was known, she could not be accused of stealing, and that if she could only get out of the way till the wrath of the magistrate and policemen should have evaporated, she might possibly escape altogether. At any rate, they could not take her income away from her. But how could she get out of the way, and how could she endure to be cross-examined, and looked at, and inquired into, by all those who would be concerned in the matter? She thought that, if only she could have arranged her matrimonial affairs before the bad day came upon her, she could have endured it better. If she might be allowed to see Lord George, she could ask for advice, - could ask for advice, not as she was always forced to do from her cousin, on a false statement of facts, but with everything known and declared.

On that very day Lord George came to Hertford Street. He had been there more than once, perhaps half a dozen times, since the robbery; but on all these occasions Lizzie had been in bed, and he had declined to visit her in her chamber. In fact, even Lord George had become somewhat afraid of her since he had been told the true story as to the necklace at Carlisle. That story he had heard from herself, and he had also heard from Mr. Benjamin some other little details as to her former life. Mr. Benjamin, whose very close attention had been drawn to the Eustace diamonds, had told Lord George how he had valued them at her ladys.h.i.+p's request, and had caused an iron case to be made for them, and how her ladys.h.i.+p had, on one occasion, endeavoured to sell the necklace to him. Mr. Benjamin, who certainly was intimate with Lord George, was very fond of talking about the diamonds, and had once suggested to his lords.h.i.+p that, were they to become his lords.h.i.+p's by marriage, he, Benjamin, might be willing to treat with his lords.h.i.+p. In regard to treating with her ladys.h.i.+p, - Mr. Benjamin acknowledged that he thought it would be too hazardous. Then came the robbery of the box, and Lord George was all astray. Mr. Benjamin was for a while equally astray, but neither friend believed in the other friend's innocence. That Lord George should suspect Mr. Benjamin was quite natural. Mr. Benjamin hardly knew what to think; - hardly gave Lord George credit for the necessary courage, skill, and energy. But at last, as he began to put two and two together, he divined the truth, and was enabled to set the docile Patience on the watch over her mistress's belongings. So it had been with Mr. Benjamin, who at last was able to satisfy Mr. Smiler and Mr. Cann that he had been no party to their cruel disappointment at Carlisle. How Lord George had learned the truth has been told; - the truth as to Lizzie's hiding the necklace under her pillow and bringing it up to London in her desk. But of the facts of the second robbery he knew nothing up to this morning. He almost suspected that Lizzie had herself again been at work, - and he was afraid of her. He had promised her that he would take care of her, - had, perhaps, said enough to make her believe that some day he would marry her. He hardly remembered what he had said; - but he was afraid of her. She was so wonderfully clever that, if he did not take care, she would get him into some mess from which he would be unable to extricate himself.

He had never whispered her secret to any one; and had still been at a loss about the second robbery, when he too saw the paragraph in the newspaper. He went direct to Scotland Yard and made inquiry there. His name had been so often used in the affair, that such inquiry from him was justified. "Well, my lord; yes; we have found out something," said Bunfit. "Mr. Benjamin is off, you know."

"Benjamin off?"

"Cut the painter, my lord, and started. But what's the good, now we has the wires?"

"And who were the thieves?"

"Ah, my lord, that's telling. Perhaps I don't know. Perhaps I do. Perhaps two or three of us knows. You'll hear all in good time, my lord." Mr. Bunfit wished to appear communicative because he knew but little himself. Gager, in the meanest possible manner, had kept the matter very close; but the fact that Mr. Benjamin had started suddenly on foreign travel had become known to Mr. Bunfit.

Lord George had been very careful, asking no question about the necklace; - no question which would have shown that he knew that the necklace had been in Hertford Street when the robbery took place there; but it seemed to him now that the police must be aware that it was so. The arrest had been made because of the robbery in Hertford Street, and because of that arrest Mr. Benjamin had taken his departure. Mr. Benjamin was too big a man to have concerned himself deeply in the smaller matters which had then been stolen.

From Scotland Yard Lord George went direct to Hertford Street. He was in want of money, in want of a settled home, in want of a future income, and altogether unsatisfied with his present mode of life. Lizzie Eustace, no doubt, would take him, - unless she had told her secret to some other lover. To have his wife, immediately on her marriage, or even before it, arraigned for perjury, would not be pleasant. There was very much in the whole affair of which he would not be proud as he led his bride to the altar; - but a man does not expect to get four thousand pounds a year for nothing. Lord George, at any rate, did not conceive himself to be in a position to do so. Had there not been something crooked about Lizzie, - a screw loose, as people say, - she would never have been within his reach. There are men who always ride lame horses, and yet see as much of the hunting as others. Lord George, when he had begun to think that, after the tale which he had forced her to tell him, she had caused the diamonds to be stolen by her own maid out of her own desk, became almost afraid of her. But now, as he looked at the matter again and again, he believed that the second robbery had been genuine. He did not quite make up his mind, but he went to Hertford Street resolved to see her.

He asked for her, and was shown at once into her own sitting-room. "So you have come at last," she said.

"Yes; - I've come at last. It would not have done for me to come up to you when you were in bed. Those women down-stairs would have talked about it everywhere."

"I suppose they would," said Lizzie almost piteously.

"It wouldn't have been at all wise after all that has been said. People would have been sure to suspect that I had got the things out of your desk."

"Oh, no; - not that."

"I wasn't going to run the risk, my dear." His manner to her was anything but civil, anything but complimentary. If this was his Corsair humour, she was not sure that a Corsair might be agreeable to her. "And now tell me what you know about this second robbery."

"I know nothing, Lord George."

"Oh, yes, you do. You know something. You know, at any rate, that the diamonds were there."

"Yes; - I know that."

"And that they were taken?"

"Of course they were taken."

"You are sure of that?" There was something in his manner absolutely insolent to her. Frank was affectionate, and even Lord Fawn treated her with deference. "Because, you know, you have been very clever. To tell you the truth, I did not think at first that they had been really stolen. It might, you know, have been a little game to get them out of your own hands, - between you and your maid."

"I don't know what you take me for, Lord George."

"I take you for a lady who, for a long time, got the better of the police and the magistrates, and who managed to s.h.i.+ft all the trouble off your own shoulders on to those of other people. You have heard that they have taken one of the thieves?"

"And they have got the girl."

"Have they? I didn't know that. That scoundrel Benjamin has levanted too."

"Levanted!" said Lizzie, raising both her hands.

"Not an hour too soon, my lady. And now what do you mean to do?"

"What ought I to do?"

"Of course the whole truth will come out."

"Must it come out?"

"Not a doubt of that. How can it be helped?"

"You won't tell. You promised that you would not."

"Psha; - promised! If they put me in a witness-box of course I must tell. When you come to this kind of work, promises don't go for much. I don't know that they ever do. What is a broken promise?"

"It's a story," said Lizzie, in innocent amazement.

"And what was it you told when you were upon your oath at Carlisle; and again when the magistrate came here?"

"Oh, Lord George; - how unkind you are to me!"

"Patience Crabstick will tell it all, without any help from me. Don't you see that the whole thing must be known? She'll say where the diamonds were found; - and how did they come there, if you didn't put them there? As for telling, there'll be telling enough. You've only two things to do."

"What are they, Lord George?"

"Go off, like Mr. Benjamin; or else make a clean breast of it. Send for John Eustace and tell him the whole. For his brother's sake he'll make the best of it. It will all be published, and then, perhaps, there will be an end of it."

"I couldn't do that, Lord George!" said Lizzie, bursting into tears.

"You ask me, and I can only tell you what I think. That you should be able to keep the history of the diamonds a secret, does not seem to me to be upon the cards. No doubt people who are rich, and are connected with rich people, and have great friends, - who are what the world call swells, - have great advantages over their inferiors when they get into trouble. You are the widow of a baronet, and you have an uncle a bishop, and another a dean, and a countess for an aunt. You have a brother-in-law and a first-cousin in Parliament, and your father was an admiral. The other day you were engaged to marry a peer."

"Oh yes," said Lizzie, "and Lady Glencora Palliser is my particular friend."

"She is; is she? So much the better. Lady Glencora, no doubt, is a very swell among swells."

"The Duke of Omnium would do anything for me," said Lizzie with enthusiasm.

"If you were n.o.body, you would, of course, be indicted for perjury, and would go to prison. As it is, if you will tell all your story to one of your swell friends, I think it very likely that you may be pulled through. I should say that Mr. Eustace, or your cousin Greystock, would be the best."

"Why couldn't you do it? You know it all. I told you because - because - because I thought you would be the kindest to me."

"You told me, my dear, because you thought it would not matter much with me, and I appreciate the compliment. I can do nothing for you. I am not near enough to those who wear wigs."

Lizzie did not above half understand him, - did not at all understand him when he spoke of those who wore wigs, and was quite dark to his irony about her great friends; - but she did perceive that he was in earnest in recommending her to confess. She thought about it for a moment in silence, and the more she thought the more she felt that she could not do it. Had he not suggested a second alternative, - that she should go off like Mr. Benjamin? It might be possible that she should go off, and yet be not quite like Mr. Benjamin. In that case ought she not to go under the protection of her Corsair? Would not that be the proper way of going? "Might I not go abroad, - just for a time?" she asked.

"And so let it blow over?"

"Just so, you know."

"It is possible that you might," he said. "Not that it would blow over altogether. Everybody would know it. It is too late now to stop the police, and if you meant to be off, you should be off at once; - to-day or to-morrow."

"Oh dear!"

"Indeed, there's no saying whether they will let you go. You could start now, this moment; - and if you were at Dover could get over to France. But when once it is known that you had the necklace all that time in your own desk, any magistrate, I imagine, could stop you. You'd better have some lawyer you can trust; - not that blackguard Mopus."

Lord George had certainly brought her no comfort. When he told her that she might go at once if she chose, she remembered, with a pang of agony, that she had already overdrawn her account at the bankers. She was the actual possessor of an income of four thousand pounds a year, and now, in her terrible strait, she could not stir because she had no money with which to travel. Had all things been well with her, she could, no doubt, have gone to her bankers and have arranged this little difficulty. But as it was, she could not move, because her purse was empty.

Lord George sat looking at her, and thinking whether he would make the plunge and ask her to be his wife, - with all her impediments and drawbacks about her. He had been careful to reduce her to such a condition of despair, that she would undoubtedly have accepted him, so that she might have some one to lean upon in her trouble; - but, as he looked at her, he doubted. She was such a ma.s.s of deceit, that he was afraid of her. She might say that she would marry him, and then, when the storm was over, refuse to keep her word. She might be in debt, - almost to any amount. She might be already married, for anything that he knew. He did know that she was subject to all manner of penalties for what she had done. He looked at her, and told himself that she was very pretty. But in spite of her beauty, his judgment went against her. He did not dare to share even his boat with so dangerous a fellow-pa.s.senger. "That's my advice," he said, getting up from his chair.

"Are you going?"

"Well; - yes; I don't know what else I can do for you."

"You are so unkind!" He shrugged his shoulders, just touched her hand, and left the room without saying another word to her.

CHAPTER LXIV.

Lizzie's Last Scheme Lizzie, when she was left alone, was very angry with the Corsair, - in truth, more sincerely angry than she had ever been with any of her lovers, or, perhaps, with any human being. Sincere, true, burning wrath was not the fault to which she was most exposed. She could snap and snarl, and hate, and say severe things; she could quarrel, and fight, and be malicious; - but to be full of real wrath was uncommon with her. Now she was angry. She had been civil, more than civil, to Lord George. She had opened her house to him, and her heart. She had told him her great secret. She had implored his protection. She had thrown herself into his arms. And now he had rejected her. That he should have been rough to her was only in accordance with the poetical attributes which she had attributed to him. But his roughness should have been streaked with tenderness. He should not have left her roughly. In the whole interview he had not said a loving word to her. He had given her advice, - which might be good or bad, - but he had given it as to one whom he despised. He had spoken to her throughout the interview exactly as he might have spoken to Sir Griffin Tewett. She could not a.n.a.lyse her feelings thoroughly, but she felt that because of what had pa.s.sed between them, by reason of his knowledge of her secret, he had robbed her of all that observance which was due to her as a woman and a lady. She had been roughly used before, - by people of inferior rank who had seen through her ways. Andrew Gowran had insulted her. Patience Crabstick had argued with her. Benjamin, the employer of thieves, had been familiar with her. But hitherto, in what she was pleased to call her own set, she had always been treated with that courtesy which ladies seldom fail to receive. She understood it all. She knew how much of mere word-service there often is in such complimentary usage. But, nevertheless, it implies respect, and an acknowledgement of the position of her who is so respected. Lord George had treated her as one schoolboy treats another.

And he had not spoken to her one word of love. Love will excuse roughness. Spoken love will palliate even spoken roughness. Had he once called her his own Lizzie, he might have scolded her as he pleased, - might have abused her to the top of his bent. But as there had been nothing of the manner of a gentleman to a lady, so also had there been nothing of the lover to his mistress. That dream was over. Lord George was no longer a Corsair, but a brute.

But what should she do? Even a brute may speak truth. She was to have gone to a theatre that evening with Mrs. Carbuncle, but she stayed at home thinking over her position. She heard nothing throughout the day from the police; and she made up her mind that, unless she were stopped by the police, she would go to Scotland on the day but one following. She thought that she was sure that she would do so; but, of course, she must be guided by events as they occurred. She wrote, however, to Miss Macnulty saying that she would come, and she told Mrs. Carbuncle of her proposed journey as that lady was leaving the house for the theatre. On the following morning, however, news came which again made her journey doubtful. There was another paragraph in the newspaper about the robbery, acknowledging the former paragraph to have been in some respect erroneous. The "accomplished housebreaker" had not been arrested. A confederate of the "accomplished housebreaker" was in the hands of the police, and the police were on the track of the "accomplished housebreaker" himself. Then there was a line or two alluding in a very mysterious way to the disappearance of a certain jeweller. Taking it altogether, Lizzie thought that there was ground for hope, - and that, at any rate, there would be delay. She would, perhaps, put off going to Scotland for yet a day or two. Was it not necessary that she should wait for Lord Fawn's answer; and would it not be inc.u.mbent on her cousin Frank to send her some account of himself after the abrupt manner in which he had left her?

If in real truth she should be driven to tell her story to any one, - and she began to think that she was so driven, - she would tell it to him. She believed more in his regard for her than that of any other human being. She thought that he would, in truth, have been devoted to her, had he not become entangled with that wretched little governess. And she thought that if he could see his way out of that sc.r.a.pe, he would marry her even yet, - would marry her, and be good to her, so that her dream of a poetical phase of life should not be altogether dissolved. After all, the diamonds were her own. She had not stolen them. When perplexed in the extreme by magistrates and policemen, with n.o.body near her whom she trusted to give her advice, - for Lizzie now of course declared to herself that she had never for a moment trusted the Corsair, - she had fallen into an error, and said what was not true. As she practised it before the gla.s.s, she thought that she could tell her story in a becoming manner, with becoming tears, to Frank Greystock. And were it not for Lucy Morris, she thought that he would take her with all her faults and all her burthens.

As for Lord Fawn, she knew well enough that, let him write what he would, and renew his engagement in what most formal manner might be possible, he would be off again when he learned the facts as to that night at Carlisle. She had brought him to succ.u.mb, because he could no longer justify his treatment of her by reference to the diamonds. But when once all the world should know that she had twice perjured herself, his justification would be complete, - and his escape would be certain. She would use his letter simply to achieve that revenge which she had promised herself. Her effort, - her last final effort, - must be made to secure the hand and heart of her cousin Frank. "Ah, 'tis his heart I want!" she said to herself.

She must settle something before she went to Scotland, - if there was anything that could be settled. If she could only get a promise from Frank before all her treachery had been exposed, he probably would remain true to his promise. He would not desert her as Lord Fawn had done. Then, after much thinking of it, she resolved upon a scheme which, of all her schemes, was the wickedest. Whatever it might cost her, she would create a separation between Frank Greystock and Lucy Morris. Having determined upon this, she wrote to Lucy, asking her to call in Hertford Street at a certain hour.

Dear Lucy, I particularly want to see you, - on business. Pray come to me at twelve to-morrow. I will send the carriage for you, and it will take you back again. Pray do this. We used to love one another, and I am sure I love you still.

Your affectionate old friend, Lizzie.

As a matter of course Lucy went to her. Lizzie, before the interview, studied the part she was to play with all possible care, - even to the words which she was to use. The greeting was at first kindly, for Lucy had almost forgotten the bribe that had been offered to her, and had quite forgiven it. Lizzie Eustace never could be dear to her; but, - so Lucy had thought during her happiness, - this former friend of hers was the cousin of the man who was to be her husband, and was dear to him. Of course she had forgiven the offence. "And now, dear, I want to ask you a question," Lizzie said; "or rather, perhaps not a question. I can do it better than that. I think that my cousin Frank once talked of - of making you his wife." Lucy answered not a word, but she trembled in every limb, and the colour came to her face. "Was it not so, dear?"

"What if it was? I don't know why you should ask me any question like that about myself."

"Is he not my cousin?"