The Palliser Novels (285 page)

“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 shift 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 nobody, 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 mass 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-passenger. “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.

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 analyse her feelings thoroughly, but she felt that because of what had passed 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 incumbent 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 scrape, 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 nobody 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 glass, 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 succumb, 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?”

“Yes, — he is your cousin. Why don’t you ask him? You see him every day, I suppose?”

“Nearly every day.”

“Why do you send for me, then?”

“It is so hard to tell you, Lucy. I have sent to you in good faith, and in love. I could have gone to you, — only for the old vulture, who would not have let us had a word in peace. I do see him — constantly. And I love him dearly.”