The Palliser Novels Part 155

Lizzie, when she received this, had two strings to her bow. A writer from Ayr had told her that the summons sent to her was not worth the paper on which it was printed in regard to a resident in Scotland; - and she had also got a doctor from the neighbourhood who was satisfied that she was far too ill to travel up to London. Pulmonary debilitation was the complaint from which she was suffering, which, with depressed vitality in all the organs, and undue languor in all the bodily functions, would be enough to bring her to a speedy end if she so much as thought of making a journey up to London. A certificate to this effect was got in triplicate. One copy she sent to the attorneys, one to Frank, and one she kept herself.

The matter was very pressing indeed. It was considered that the trial could not be postponed till the next sitting at the Criminal Court, because certain witnesses in respect to the diamonds had been procured from Hamburg and Vienna, at a very great cost; they were actually on their way to London when Lizzie's second letter was received. Mr. Camperdown had resolved to have the diamonds, still with a hope that they might be restored to the keeping of Messrs. Garnett, there to lie hidden and unused at any rate for the next twenty years. The diamonds had been traced first to Hamburg, and then to Vienna; - and it was to be proved that they were now adorning the bosom of a certain enormously rich Russian princess. From the grasp of the Russian princess it was found impossible to rescue them; but the witnesses who, as it was hoped, might have aided Mr. Camperdown in his efforts, were to be examined at the trial.

A confidential clerk was sent down to Portray, but the confidential clerk altogether failed in making his way into Lizzie's presence. Word was brought to him that nothing but force could take Lady Eustace from her bed-chamber; and that force used to that effect might take her out dead, but certainly not alive. He made inquiry, however, about the doctor, and found that he certainly was a doctor. If a doctor will certify that a lady is dying, what can any judge do, or any jury? There are certain statements which, though they are false as h.e.l.l, must be treated as though they were true as gospel. The clerk reported, when he got back to London, that, to his belief, Lady Eustace was enjoying an excellent state of health; - but that he was perfectly certain that she would not appear as a witness at the trial.

The anger felt by many persons as to Lizzie's fraudulent obstinacy was intense. Mr. Camperdown thought that she ought to be dragged up to London by cart ropes. The attorneys engaged for the prosecution were almost beside themselves. They did send down a doctor of their own, but Lizzie would not see the doctor, - would not see the doctor though threats of most frightful consequences were conveyed to her. She would be exposed, fined thousands of pounds, committed to gaol for contempt of court, and prosecuted for perjury into the bargain. But she was firm. She wrote one sc.r.a.p of a note to the doctor who came from London, "I shall not live to satisfy their rabid vengeance." Even Frank Greystock felt almost more annoyed than gratified that she should be able thus to escape. People who had heard of the inquiry before the magistrate, had postponed their excitement and interest on the occasion, because they knew that the day of the trial would be the great day; and when they heard that they were to be robbed of the pleasure of Lady Eustace's cross-examination, there arose almost a public feeling of wrath that justice should be thus outraged. The doctor who had given the certificate was vilified in the newspapers, and long articles were written as to the impotence of the law. But Lizzie was successful, and the trial went on without her.

It appeared that though her evidence was very desirable it was not absolutely essential, as, in consequence of her certified illness, the statement which she had made at the police-court could be brought up and used against the prisoners. All the facts of the robbery were, moreover, proved by Patience Crabstick and Billy Cann; and the transfer of the diamonds by Mr. Benjamin to the man who recut them at Hamburg was also proved. Many other morsels of collateral evidence had also been picked up by the police, - so that there was no possible doubt as to any detail of the affair in Hertford Street. There was a rumour that Mr. Benjamin intended to plead guilty. He might, perhaps, have done so had it not been for the absence of Lady Eustace; but as that was thought to give him a possible chance of escape, he stood his ground.

Lizzie's absence was a great disappointment to the sight-seers of London, but nevertheless the court was crowded. It was understood that the learned serjeant who was retained on this occasion to defend Mr. Benjamin, and who was a.s.sisted by the acute gentleman who had appeared before the magistrate, would be rather severe upon Lady Eustace, even in her absence; and that he would ground his demand for an acquittal on the combined facts of her retention of the diamonds, her perjury, and of her obstinate refusal to come forward on the present occasion. As it was known that he could be very severe, many came to hear him, - and they were not disappointed. The reader shall see a portion of his address to the jury, - which we hope may have had some salutary effect on Lizzie, as she read it in her retreat at Portray, looking out upon her own blue waves.

"And now, gentlemen of the jury, let me recapitulate to you the history of this lady as far as it relates to the diamonds as to which my client is now in jeopardy. You have heard on the testimony of Mr. Camperdown that they were not hers at all, - that, at any rate, they were not supposed to be hers by those in whose hands was left the administration of her husband's estate, and that when they were first supposed to have been stolen at the inn at Carlisle, he had already commenced legal steps for the recovery of them from her clutches. A bill in Chancery had been filed because she had obstinately refused to allow them to pa.s.s out of her hands. It has been proved to you by Lord Fawn that though he was engaged to marry her, he broke his engagement because he supposed her possession of these diamonds to be fraudulent and dishonest." This examination had been terrible to the unfortunate Under-Secretary; - and had absolutely driven him away from the India Board and from Parliament for a month. "It has been proved to you that when the diamonds were supposed to have vanished at Carlisle, she there committed perjury. That she did so she herself stated on oath in that evidence which she gave before the magistrate when my client was committed, and which has, as I maintain, improperly and illegally been used against my client at this trial." Here the judge looked over his spectacles and admonished the learned serjeant, that his argument on that subject had already been heard, and the matter decided. "True, my lord; but my conviction of my duty to my client compels me to revert to it. Lady Eustace committed perjury at Carlisle, having the diamonds in her pocket at the very moment in which she swore that they had been stolen from her. And if justice had really been done in this case, gentlemen, it is Lady Eustace who should now be on her trial before you, and not my unfortunate client. Well, - what is the next that we hear of it? It seems that she brought the diamonds up to London; but how long she kept them there, n.o.body knows. It was, however, necessary to account for them. A robbery is got up between a young woman who seems to have been the confidential friend rather than the maid of Lady Eustace, and that other witness whom you have heard testifying against himself, and who is, of all the informers that ever came into my hands, the most flippant, the most hardened, the least conscientious, and the least credible. That they two were engaged in a conspiracy I cannot doubt. That Lady Eustace was engaged with them, I will not say. But I will ask you to consider whether such may not probably have been the case. At any rate, she then perjures herself again. She gives a list of the articles stolen from her, and omits the diamonds. She either perjures herself a second time, - or else the diamonds, in regard to which my client is in jeopardy, were not in the house at all, and could not then have been stolen. It may very probably have been so. Nothing more probable. Mr. Camperdown and the managers of the Eustace estate had gradually come to a belief that the Carlisle robbery was a hoax, - and, therefore, another robbery is necessary to account for the diamonds. Another robbery is arranged, and this young and beautiful widow, as bold as bra.s.s, again goes before the magistrate and swears. Either the diamonds were not stolen, or else again she commits a second perjury.

"And now, gentlemen, she is not here. She is sick forsooth at her own castle in Scotland, and sends to us a medical certificate. But the gentlemen who are carrying on the prosecution know their witness, and don't believe a word of her sickness. Had she the feelings of woman in her bosom she ought indeed to be sick unto death. But they know her better, and send down a doctor of their own. You have heard his evidence, - and yet this wonderful lady is not before us. I say again that she ought to be here in that dock, - in that dock in spite of her fortune, in that dock in spite of her t.i.tle, in that dock in spite of her castle, her riches, her beauty, and her great relatives. A most wonderful woman, indeed, is the widow Eustace. It is she whom public opinion will convict as the guilty one in this marvellous ma.s.s of conspiracy and intrigue. In her absence, and after what she has done herself, can you convict any man either of stealing or of disposing of these diamonds?" The vigour, the att.i.tude, and the indignant tone of the man were more even than his words; - but, nevertheless, the jury did find both Benjamin and Smiler guilty, and the judge did sentence them to penal servitude for fifteen years.

And this was the end of the Eustace diamonds as far as anything was ever known of them in England. Mr. Camperdown altogether failed, even in his attempt to buy them back at something less than their value, and was ashamed himself to look at the figures when he found how much money he had wasted for his clients in their pursuit. In discussing the matter afterwards with Mr. Dove, he excused himself by a.s.serting his inability to see so gross a robbery perpetrated by a little minx under his very eyes without interfering with the plunder. "I knew what she was," he said, "from the moment of Sir Florian's unfortunate marriage. He had brought a little harpy into the family, and I was obliged to declare war against her." Mr. Dove seemed to be of opinion that the ultimate loss of the diamonds was upon the whole desirable, as regarded the whole community. "I should like to have had the case settled as to right of possession," he said, "because there were in it one or two points of interest. We none of us know, for instance, what a man can, or what a man cannot, give away by a mere word."

"No such word was ever spoken," said Mr. Camperdown in wrath.

"Such evidence as there is would have gone to show that it had been spoken. But the very existence of such property so to be disposed of, or so not to be disposed of, is in itself an evil. Thus, we have had to fight for six months about a lot of stones hardly so useful as the flags in the street, and then they vanish from us, leaving us nothing to repay us for our labour." All which Mr. Camperdown did not quite understand. Mr. Dove would be paid for his labour, - as to which, however, Mr. Camperdown knew well that no human being was more indifferent than Mr. Dove.

There was much sorrow, too, among the police. They had no doubt succeeded in sending two scoundrels out of the social world, probably for life, and had succeeded in avoiding the reproach which a great robbery, unaccounted for, always entails upon them. But it was sad to them that the property should altogether have been lost, and sad also that they should have been constrained to allow Billy Cann to escape out of their hands. Perhaps the sadness may have been lessened to a certain degree in the breast of the great Mr. Gager by the charms and graces of Patience Crabstick, to whom he kept his word by making her his wife. This fact, - or rather the prospect of this fact, as it then was, - had also come to the knowledge of the learned serjeant, and, in his hands, had served to add another interest to the trial. Mr. Gager, when examined on the subject, did not attempt to deny the impeachment, and expressed a strong opinion that, though Miss Crabstick had given way to temptation under the wiles of the Jew, she would make an honest and an excellent wife. In which expectation let us trust that he may not be deceived.

Amus.e.m.e.nt had, indeed, been expected from other sources which failed. Mrs. Carbuncle had been summoned, and Lord George; but both of them had left town before the summons could reach them. It was rumoured that Mrs. Carbuncle, with her niece, had gone to join her husband at New York. At any rate, she disappeared altogether from London, leaving behind her an amount of debts which showed how extremely liberal in their dealings the great tradesmen of London will occasionally be. There were milliners' bills which had been running for three years, and horse-dealers had given her credit year after year, though they had scarcely ever seen the colour of her money. One account, however, she had honestly settled. The hotel-keeper in Albemarle Street had been paid, and all the tribute had been packed and carried off from the scene of the proposed wedding banquet. What became of Lord George for the next six months, n.o.body ever knew; but he appeared at Melton in the following November, and I do not know that any one dared to ask him questions about the Eustace diamonds.

Of Lizzie, and her future career, something further must be said in the concluding chapters of this work. She has been our heroine, and we must see her through her immediate troubles before we can leave her; but it may be as well to mention here, that although many threats had been uttered against her, not only by Mr. Camperdown and the other attorneys, but even by the judge himself, no punishment at all was inflicted upon her in regard to her recusancy, nor was any attempt made to punish her. The affair was over, and men were glad to avoid the necessity of troubling themselves further with the business. It was said that a case would be got up with the view of proving that she had not been ill at all, and that the Scotch doctor would be subjected to the loss of his degree, or whatever privileges in the healing art belonged to him; - but nothing was done, and Lizzie triumphed in her success.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

Once More at Portray On the very day of the trial Mr. Emilius travelled from London to Kilmarnock. The trial took place on a Monday, so that he had at his command an entire week before he would be required to appear again in his church. He had watched the case against Benjamin and Smiler very closely, and had known beforehand, almost with accuracy, what witnesses would appear and what would not at the great coming event at the Old Bailey. When he first heard of Lady Eustace's illness, he wrote to her a most affectionately pastoral letter, strongly adjuring her to think of her health before all things, and a.s.suring her that in his opinion, and in that of all his friends, she was quite right not to come up to London. She wrote him a very short but a very gracious answer, thanking him for his solicitude, and explaining to him that her condition made it quite impossible that she should leave Portray.

"I don't suppose anybody knows how ill I am; but it does not matter. When I am gone, they will know what they have done." Then Mr. Emilius resolved that he would go down to Scotland. Perhaps Lady Eustace was not as ill as she thought; but it might be that the trial, and the hard things lately said of her, and her loneliness, and the feeling that she needed protection, might, at such a moment as this, soften her heart. She should know at least that one tender friend did not desert her because of the evil things which men said of her.

He went to Kilmarnock, thinking it better to make his approaches by degrees. Were he to present himself at once at the castle and be refused admittance, he would hardly know how to repeat his application or to force himself upon her presence. From Kilmarnock he wrote to her, saying that business connected with his ministrations during the coming autumn had brought him into her beautiful neighbourhood, and that he could not leave it without paying his respects to her in person. With her permission he would call upon her on the Thursday at about noon. He trusted that the state of her health would not prevent her from seeing him, and reminded her that a clergyman was often as welcome a visitor at the bedside of the invalid, as the doctor or the nurse. He gave her no address, as he rather wished to hinder her from answering him, but at the appointed hour he knocked at the castle-door.

Need it be said that Lizzie's state of health was not such as to preclude her from seeing so intimate a friend as Mr. Emilius? That she was right to avoid by any effort the castigation which was to have fallen upon her from the tongue of the learned serjeant, the reader who is not straight-laced will be disposed to admit. A lone woman, very young, and delicately organised! How could she have stood up against such treatment as was in store for her? And is it not the case that false pretexts against public demands are always held to be justifiable by the female mind? What lady will ever scruple to avoid her taxes? What woman ever understood her duty to the State? And this duty which was required of her was so terrible, that it might well have reduced to falsehood a stouter heart than her own. It can hardly be reckoned among Lizzie's great sins that she did not make that journey up to London. An appearance of sickness she did maintain, even with her own domestics. To do as much as that was due even to the doctor whom she had cajoled out of the certificate, and who was afterwards frightened into maintaining it. But Mr. Emilius was her clergyman, - her own clergyman, as she took care to say to her maid, - her own clergyman, who had come all the way from London to be present with her in her sickness; and of course she would see him.

Lizzie did not think much of the coming autumnal ministration at Kilmarnock. She knew very well why Mr. Emilius had undertaken the expense of a journey into Scotland in the middle of the London season. She had been maimed fearfully in her late contests with the world, and was now lame and soiled and impotent. The boy with none of the equipments of the skilled sportsman can make himself master of a wounded bird. Mr. Emilius was seeking her in the moment of her weakness, fearing that all chance of success might be over for him should she ever again recover the full use of her wings. All this Lizzie understood, and was able to measure Mr. Emilius at his own value of himself. But then, again, she was forced to ask herself what was her value. She had been terribly mauled by the fowlers. She had been hit, so to say, on both wings, and hardly knew whether she would ever again be able to attempt a flight in public. She could not live alone in Portray Castle for the rest of her days. Ianthe's soul and the Corsair were not, in truth, able to console her for the loss of society. She must have somebody to depend upon; - ah, some one whom, if it were possible, she might love. She saw no reason why she should not love Mr. Emilius. She had been shockingly ill-treated by Lord Fawn, and the Corsair, and Frank Greystock. No woman had ever been so knocked about in her affections. She pitied herself with an exceeding pity when she thought of all the hards.h.i.+ps which she had endured. Left an early widow, persecuted by her husband's family, twice robbed, spied upon by her own servants, unappreciated by the world at large, ill-used by three lovers, victimised by her selected friend, Mrs. Carbuncle, and now driven out of society because she had lost her diamonds, was she not more cruelly treated than any woman of whom she had ever read or heard? But she was not going to give up the battle, even now. She still had her income, and she had great faith in income. And though she knew that she had been grievously wounded by the fowlers, she believed that time would heal her wounds. The world would not continue to turn its back altogether upon a woman with four thousand pounds a year, because she had told a fib about her necklace. She weighed all this; but the conviction strongest upon her mind was the necessity that she should have a husband. She felt that a woman by herself in the world can do nothing, and that an unmarried woman's strength lies only in the expectation that she may soon be married. To her it was essentially necessary that she should have the protection of a husband who might endure on her behalf some portion of those buffetings to which she seemed to be especially doomed. Could she do better with herself than take Mr. Emilius?

Might she have chosen from all the world, Mr. Emilius was not, perhaps, the man whom she would have selected. There were, indeed, attributes in the man, very objectionable in the sight of some people, which to her were not specially disagreeable. She thought him rather good-looking than otherwise, in spite of a slight defect in his left eye. His coal-black, glossy hair commanded and obtained her admiration, and she found his hooky nose to be handsome. She did not think much of the ancestral blood of which he had boasted, and hardly believed that he would ever become a bishop. But he was popular, and with a rich, t.i.tled wife, might become more so. Mr. Emilius and Lady Eustace would, she thought, sound very well, and would surely make their way in society. The man had a grasping ambition about him, and a capacity, too, which, combined, would enable him to preach himself into notoriety. And then in marrying Mr. Emilius, should she determine to do so, she might be sure, almost sure, of dictating her own terms as to settlement. With Lord Fawn, with Lord George, or even with her cousin Frank, there would have been much difficulty. She thought that with Mr. Emilius she might obtain the undisputed command of her own income. But she did not quite make up her mind. She would see him and hear what he had to say. Her income was her own, and should she refuse Mr. Emilius, other suitors would no doubt come.

She dressed herself with considerable care, - having first thought of receiving him in bed. But as the trial had now gone on without her, it would be convenient that her recovery should be commenced. So she had herself dressed in a white morning wrapper with pink bows, and allowed the curl to be made fit to hang over her shoulder. And she put on a pair of pretty slippers, with gilt bindings, and took a laced handkerchief and a volume of Sh.e.l.ley, - and so she prepared herself to receive Mr. Emilius. Lizzie, since the reader first knew her, had begun to use a little colouring in the arrangement of her face, and now, in honour of her sickness, she was very pale indeed. But still, through the paleness, there was the faintest possible tinge of pink colour s.h.i.+ning through the translucent pearl powder. Any one who knew Lizzie would be sure that, when she did paint, she would paint well.

The conversation was at first, of course, confined to the lady's health. She thought that she was, perhaps, getting better, though, as the doctor had told her, the rea.s.suring symptoms might too probably only be too fallacious. She could eat nothing, - literally nothing. A few grapes out of the hothouse had supported her for the last week. This statement was foolish on Lizzie's part, as Mr. Emilius was a man of an inquiring nature, and there was not a grape in the garden. Her only delight was in reading and in her child's society. Sometimes she thought that she would pa.s.s away with the boy in her arms and her favourite volume of Sh.e.l.ley in her hand. Mr. Emilius expressed a hope that she would not pa.s.s away yet, for ever so many years. "Oh, my friend," said Lizzie, "what is life, that one should desire it?" Mr. Emilius of course reminded her that, though her life might be nothing to herself, it was very much indeed to those who loved her. "Yes; - to my boy," said Lizzie. Mr. Emilius informed her, with confidence, that it was not only her boy that loved her. There were others; - or, at any rate, one other. She might be sure of one faithful heart, if she cared for that. Lizzie only smiled, and threw from her taper fingers a little paper pellet into the middle of the room, - probably with the view of showing at what value she priced the heart of which Mr. Emilius was speaking.

The trial had occupied two days, Monday and Tuesday, and this was now the Wednesday. The result had been telegraphed to Mr. Emilius, - of course without any record of the serjeant's bitter speech, - and the suitor now gave the news to his lady-love. Those two horrid men had at last been found guilty, and punished with all the severity of the law. "Poor fellows," said Lady Eustace, - "poor Mr. Benjamin! Those ill-starred jewels have been almost as unkind to him as to me."

"He'll never come back alive, of course," said Mr. Emilius. "It'll kill him."

"And it will kill me too," said Lizzie. "I have a something here which tells me that I shall never recover. n.o.body will ever believe what I have suffered about those paltry diamonds. But he coveted them. I never coveted them, Mr. Emilius; though I clung to them because they were my darling husband's last gift to me." Mr. Emilius a.s.sured her that he quite understood the facts, and appreciated all her feelings.

And now, as he thought, had come the time for pressing his suit. With widows, he had been told, the wooing should be brisk. He had already once asked her to be his wife, and of course she knew the motive of his journey to Scotland. "Dearest Lady Eustace," he said suddenly, "may I be allowed to renew the pet.i.tion which I was once bold enough to make to you in London?"

"Pet.i.tion!" exclaimed Lizzie.

"Ah yes; I can well understand that your indifference should enable you to forget it. Lady Eustace, I did venture to tell you - that - I loved you."

"Mr. Emilius, so many men have told me that."

"I can well believe it. Some have told you so, perhaps, from base, mercenary motives."

"You are very complimentary, sir."

"I shall never pay you any compliments, Lady Eustace. Whatever may be our future intercourse in life, you will only hear words of truth from my lips. Some have told you so from mercenary motives." - Mr. Emilius repeated the words with severity, and then paused to hear whether she would dare to argue with him. As she was silent, he changed his voice, and went on with that sweet, oily tone which had made his fortune for him. - "Some, no doubt, have spoken from the inner depths of their hearts. But none, Lady Eustace, have spoken with such adamantine truth, with so intense an anxiety, with so personal a solicitude for your welfare in this world and the next, as that, - or I should rather say those, - which glow within this bosom." Lizzie was certainly pleased by the manner in which he addressed her. She thought that a man ought to dare to speak out, and that on such an occasion as this he should venture to do so with some enthusiasm and some poetry. She considered that men generally were afraid of expressing themselves, and were as dumb as dogs from the want of becoming spirit. Mr. Emilius gesticulated, and struck his breast, and brought out his words as though he meant them.

"It is easy to say all that, Mr. Emilius," she replied.

"The saying of it is hard enough, Lady Eustace. You can never know how hard it is to speak from a full heart. But to feel it, I will not say is easy; - only to me, not to feel it is impossible. Lady Eustace, my heart is devoted to your heart, and seeks its comrade. It is sick with love and will not be stayed. It forces from me words, - words which will return upon me with all the bitterness of gall, if they be not accepted by you as faithful, ay and of great value."

"I know well the value of such a heart as yours, Mr. Emilius."

"Accept it then, dearest one."

"Love will not always go by command, Mr. Emilius."

"No indeed; - nor at command will it stay away. Do you think I have not tried that? Do you believe that for a man it can be pleasant to be rebuffed; - that for one who up to this day has always walked on, triumphant over every obstacle, who has conquered every nay that has obstructed his path, it can have less of bitterness than the bitterness of death to encounter a no from the lips of a woman?"

"A poor woman's no should be nothing to you, Mr. Emilius."

"It is everything to me, - death, destruction, annihilation, - unless I can overcome it. Darling of my heart, queen of my soul, empress presiding over the very spirit of my being, say, - shall I overcome it now?"

She had never been made love to after this fas.h.i.+on before. She knew, or half knew, that the man was a scheming hypocrite, craving her money, and following her in the hour of her troubles, because he might then have the best chance of success. She had no belief whatever in his love; and yet she liked it, and approved his proceedings. She liked lies, thinking them to be more beautiful than truth. To lie readily and cleverly, recklessly and yet successfully, was, according to the lessons which she had learned, a necessity in woman and an added grace in man. There was that wretched Macnulty, who would never lie; and what was the result? She was unfit even for the poor condition of life which she pretended to fill. When poor Macnulty had heard that Mr. Emilius was coming to the castle, and had not even mentioned her name, and again, when he had been announced on this very morning, the unfortunate woman had been unable to control her absurd disappointment. "Mr. Emilius," Lizzie said, throwing herself back upon her couch, "you press me very hard."

"I would press you harder still to gain the glory I covet." And he made a motion with his arms as though he had already got her tight within his grasp.

"You take advantage of my illness."

"In attacking a fortress do not the besiegers take all advantages? Dear Lady Eustace, allow me to return to London with the right of protecting your name at this moment, in which the false and the thoughtless are attacking it. You need a defender now."

"I can defend myself, sir, from all attacks. I do not know that any one can hurt me."

"G.o.d forbid that you should be hurt. Heaven forbid that even the winds of heaven should blow too harshly on my beloved. But my beloved is subject to the malice of the world. My beloved is a flower all beautiful within and without, but one whose stalk is weak, whose petals are too delicate, whose soft bloom is evanescent. Let me be the strong staff against which my beloved may blow in safety."

A vague idea came across Lizzie's mind that this glowing language had a taste of the Bible about it, and that, therefore, it was in some degree impersonal, and intended to be pious. She did not relish piety at such a crisis as this, and was, therefore, for a moment inclined to be cold. But she liked being called a flower, and was not quite sure whether she remembered her Bible rightly. The words which struck her ear as familiar might have come from Juan and Haidee, and if so, nothing could be more opportune. "Do you expect me to give you answer now, Mr. Emilius?"

"Yes, - now." And he stood before her in calm dignity, with his arms crossed upon his breast.

She did give him his answer then and there, but first she turned her face to the wall, - or rather to the back of the sofa, and burst into a flood of tears. It was a delicious moment to her, that in which she was weeping. She sobbed forth something about her child, something about her sorrows, something as to the wretchedness of her lot in life, something of her widowed heart, - something also of that duty to others which would compel her to keep her income in her own hands; and then she yielded herself to his entreaties.

That evening she thought it proper to tell Miss Macnulty what had occurred. "He is a great preacher of the gospel," she said, "and I know no position in the world more worthy of a woman's fondest admiration." Miss Macnulty was unable to answer a word. She could not congratulate her successful rival, even though her bread depended on it. She crept slowly out of the room, and went up-stairs, and wept.

Early in the month of June, Lady Eustace was led to the hymeneal altar by her clerical bridegroom. The wedding took place at the Episcopal church at Ayr, far from the eyes of curious Londoners. It need only be further said that Mr. Emilius could be persuaded to agree to no settlements prejudicial to that marital supremacy which should be attached to the husband; and that Lizzie, when the moment came, knowing that her betrothal had been made public to all the world, did not dare to recede from another engagement. It may be that Mr. Emilius will suit her as well as any husband that she could find, - unless it shall be found that his previous career has been too adventurous. After a certain fas.h.i.+on he will, perhaps, be tender to her; but he will have his own way in everything, and be no whit afraid when she is about to die in an agony of tears before his eyes. The writer of the present story may, however, declare that the future fate of this lady shall not be left altogether in obscurity.

CHAPTER Lx.x.x.

What Was Said About It All at Matching The Whitsuntide holidays were late this year, not taking place till the beginning of June, and were protracted till the 9th of that month. On the 8th Lizzie and Mr. Emilius became man and wife, and on that same day Lady Glencora Palliser entertained a large company of guests at Matching Priory. That the Duke of Omnium was there was quite a matter of course. Indeed, in these days Lady Glencora seldom separated herself far, or for any long time, from her husband's uncle, - doing her duty to the head of her husband's family in the most exemplary manner. People indeed said that she watched him narrowly, but of persons in high station common people will say anything. It was at any rate certain that she made the declining years of that great n.o.bleman's life comfortable and decorous. Madame Max Goesler was also at Matching, a lady whose society always gave gratification to the duke. And Mr. Palliser was also there, taking the rest that was so needful to him; - by which it must be understood that after having worked all day, he was able to eat his dinner, and then only write a few letters before going to bed, instead of attending the House of Commons till two or three o'clock in the morning. But his mind was still deep in quints and semitenths. His great measure was even now in committee. His hundred and second clause had been carried, with only nine divisions against him of any consequence. Seven of the most material clauses had, no doubt, been postponed, and the great bone of contention as to the two superfluous farthings still remained before him. Nevertheless he fondly hoped that he would be able to send his bill complete to the House of Lords before the end of July. What might be done in the way of amendments there he had hitherto refused to consider. "If the peers choose to put themselves in opposition to the whole nation on a purely commercial question, the responsibility of all evils that may follow must be at their doors." This he had said as a commoner. A year or two at the farthest, - or more probably a few months, - would make him a peer; and then, no doubt, he would look at the matter in a wholly different light. But he worked at his great measure with a diligence which at any rate deserved success; and he now had with him a whole bevy of secretaries, private secretaries, chief clerks, and accountants, all of whom Lady Glencora captivated by her flattering ways, and laughed at behind their backs. Mr. Bonteen was there with his wife, repeatedly declaring to all his friends that England would achieve the glories of decimal coinage by his blood and over his grave, - and Barrington Erle, who took things much more easily, and Lord Chiltern, with his wife, who would occasionally ask her if she could explain to him the value of a quint, and many others whom it may not be necessary to name. Lord Fawn was not there. Lord Fawn, whose health had temporarily given way beneath the pressing labours of the India Board, was visiting his estates in Tipperary.

"She is married to-day, duke, down in Scotland," - said Lady Glencora, sitting close to the duke's ear, for the duke was a little deaf. They were in the duke's small morning sitting-room, and no one else was present excepting Madame Max Goesler.

"Married to-morrow, - down in Scotland. Dear, dear! what is he?" The profession to which Mr. Emilius belonged had been mentioned to the duke more than once before.

"He's some sort of a clergyman, duke. You went and heard him preach, Madame Max. You can tell us what he's like."

"Oh, yes; he's a clergyman of our church," said Madame Goesler.

"A clergyman of our church; - dear, dear. And married in Scotland! That makes it stranger. I wonder what made a clergyman marry her?"

"Money, duke," said Lady Glencora, speaking very loud.

"Oh, ah, yes; money. So he'd got money; had he?"

"Not a penny, duke; but she had."

"Oh, ah, yes. I forgot. She was very well left; wasn't she? And so she has married a clergyman without a penny. Dear, dear! Did not you say she was very beautiful?"

"Lovely!"

"Let me see, - you went and saw her, didn't you?"

"I went to her twice, - and got quite scolded about it. Plantagenet said that if I wanted horrors I'd better go to Madame Tussaud. Didn't he, Madame Max?" Madame Max smiled and nodded her head.

"And what's the clergyman like?" asked the duke.

"Now, my dear, you must take up the running," said Lady Glencora, dropping her voice. "I ran after the lady, but it was you who ran after the gentleman." Then she raised her voice. "Madame Max will tell you all about it, duke. She knows him very well."

"You know him very well; do you? Dear, dear, dear!"

"I don't know him at all, duke, but I once went to hear him preach. He's one of those men who string words together, and do a good deal of work with a cambric pocket-handkerchief."

"A gentleman?" asked the duke.

"About as like a gentleman as you're like an archbishop," said Lady Glencora.

This tickled the duke amazingly. "He, he, he; - I don't see why I shouldn't be like an archbishop. If I hadn't happened to be a duke, I should have liked to be an archbishop. Both the archbishops take rank of me. I never quite understood why that was, but they do. And these things never can be altered when they're once settled. It's quite absurd, now-a-days, since they've cut the archbishops down so terribly. They were princes once, I suppose, and had great power. But it's quite absurd now, and so they must feel it. I have often thought about that a good deal, Glencora."

"And I think about poor Mrs. Arch, who hasn't got any rank at all."

"A great prelate having a wife does seem to be an absurdity," said Madame Max, who had pa.s.sed some years of her life in a Catholic country.

"And the man is a cad; - is he?" asked the duke.

"A Bohemian Jew, duke, - an impostor who has come over here to make a fortune. We hear that he has a wife in Prague, and probably two or three elsewhere. But he has got poor little Lizzie Eustace and all her money into his grasp, and they who know him say that he's likely to keep it."

"Dear, dear, dear!"

"Barrington says that the best spec he knows out, for a younger son, would be to go to Prague for the former wife, and bring her back with evidence of the marriage. The poor little woman could not fail of being grateful to the hero who would liberate her."

"Dear, dear, dear!" said the duke. "And the diamonds never turned up after all. I think that was a pity, because I knew the late man's father very well. We used to be together a good deal at one time. He had a fine property, and we used to live - but I can't just tell you how we used to live. He, he, he!"

"You had better tell us nothing about it, duke," said Madame Max.

The affairs of our heroine were again discussed that evening in another part of the Priory. They were in the billiard-room in the evening, and Mr. Bonteen was inveighing against the inadequacy of the law as it had been brought to bear against the sinners who, between them, had succeeded in making away with the Eustace diamonds. "It was a most unworthy conclusion to such a plot," he said. "It always happens that they catch the small fry, and let the large fish escape."

"Whom did you specially want to catch?" asked Lady Glencora.

"Lady Eustace, and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, - as he calls himself."

"I quite agree with you, Mr. Bonteen, that it would be very nice to send the brother of a marquis to Botany Bay, or wherever they go now; and that it would do a deal of good to have the widow of a baronet locked up in the Penitentiary; but you see, if they didn't happen to be guilty, it would be almost a shame to punish them for the sake of the example."

"They ought to have been guilty," said Barrington Erle.

"They were guilty," protested Mr. Bonteen.

Mr. Palliser was enjoying ten minutes of recreation before he went back to his letters. "I can't say that I attended to the case very closely," he observed, "and perhaps, therefore, I am not ent.i.tled to speak about it."

"If people only spoke about what they attended to, how very little there would be to say, - eh, Mr. Bonteen?" This observation came, of course, from Lady Glencora.

"But as far as I could hear," continued Mr. Palliser, "Lord George Carruthers cannot possibly have had anything to do with it. It was a stupid mistake on the part of the police."

"I'm not quite so sure, Mr. Palliser," said Bonteen.

"I know Coldfoot told me so." Now Sir Harry Coldfoot was at this time Secretary of State for the Home affairs, and in a matter of such importance of course had an opinion of his own.

"We all know that he had money dealings with Benjamin, the Jew," said Mrs. Bonteen.