The Palliser Novels (296 page)

“He was not upon his oath, Lady Eustace.”

“He did take his oath, — ever so many times. I don’t know what difference an oath makes. People ain’t obliged to tell their secrets, and I wouldn’t tell mine.”

“The difference is this, Lady Eustace; — that if you give false evidence upon oath, you commit perjury.”

“How was I to think of that, when I was so frightened and confused that I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing? There; — now I have told you everything.”

“Not quite everything. The diamonds were not stolen at Carlisle, but they were stolen afterwards. Did you tell the police what you had lost, — or the magistrate, — after the robbery in Hertford Street?”

“Yes; I did. There was some money taken, and rings, and other jewellery.”

“Did you tell them that the diamonds had been really stolen on that occasion?”

“They never asked me, Mr. Camperdown.”

“It is all as clear as a pike-staff, John,” said the lawyer.

“Quite clear, I should say,” replied Mr. Eustace.

“And I suppose I may go,” said Lizzie, rising from her chair.

There was no reason why she should not go; and, indeed, now that the interview was over, there did not seem to be any reason why she should have come. Though they had heard so much from her own mouth, they knew no more than they had known before. The great mystery had been elucidated, and Lizzie Eustace had been found to be the intriguing villain; but it was quite clear, even to Mr. Camperdown, that nothing could be done to her. He had never really thought that it would be expedient that she should be prosecuted for perjury, and he now found that she must go utterly scatheless, although, by her obstinacy and dishonesty, she had inflicted so great a loss on the distinguished family which had taken her to its bosom. “I have no reason for wishing to detain you, Lady Eustace,” he said. “If I were to talk for ever, I should not, probably, make you understand the extent of the injury you have done, or teach you to look in a proper light at the position in which you have placed yourself and all those who belong to you. When your husband died, good advice was given you, and given, I think, in a very kind way. You would not listen to it, and you see the result.”

“I ain’t a bit ashamed of anything,” said Lizzie.

“I suppose not,” rejoined Mr. Camperdown.

“Good-bye, John.” And Lizzie put out her hand to her brother-in-law.

“Good-bye, Lizzie.”

“Mr. Camperdown, I have the honour to wish you good morning.” And Lizzie made a low curtsey to the lawyer, and was then attended to her carriage by the lawyer’s clerk. She had certainly come forth from the interview without fresh wounds.

“The barrister who will have the cross-examining of her at the Central Criminal Court,” said Mr. Camperdown, as soon as the door was closed behind her, “will have a job of work on his hands. There’s nothing a pretty woman can’t do when she has got rid of all sense of shame.”

“She is a very great woman,” said John Eustace, — “a very great woman; and, if the sex could have its rights, would make an excellent lawyer.” In the meantime Lizzie Eustace returned home to Hertford Street in triumph.

Lizzie’s interview with the lawyer took place on the Wednesday afternoon, and, on her return to Hertford Street she found a note from Mrs. Carbuncle. “I have made arrangements for dining out to-day, and shall not return till after ten. I will do the same to-morrow, and on every day till you leave town, and you can breakfast in your own room. Of course you will carry out your plan for leaving this house on Monday. After what has passed, I shall prefer not to meet you again. — J.C.” And this was written by a woman who, but a few days since, had borrowed £150 from her, and who at this moment had in her hands fifty pounds’ worth of silver-plate, supposed to have been given to Lucinda, and which clearly ought to have been returned to the donor when Lucinda’s marriage was — postponed, as the newspapers had said! Lucinda at this time had left the house in Hertford Street, but Lizzie had not been informed whither she had been taken. She could not apply to Lucinda for restitution of the silver, — which was, in fact, held at the moment by the Albemarle Street hotel-keeper as part security for his debt, — and she was quite sure that any application to Mrs. Carbuncle for either the silver or the debt would be unavailing. But she might, perhaps, cause annoyance by a letter, and could, at any rate, return insult for insult. She therefore wrote to her late friend.
 

Madam
,

I certainly am not desirous of continuing an acquaintance into which I was led by false representations, and in the course of which I have been almost absurdly hospitable to persons altogether unworthy of my kindness. You, and your niece, and your especial friend Lord George Carruthers, and that unfortunate young man your niece’s lover, were entertained at my country-house as my guests for some months. I am here, in my own right, by arrangement; and as I pay more than a proper share of the expense of the establishment, I shall stay as long as I please, and go when I please.

In the meantime, as we are about to part, certainly for ever, I must beg you at once to repay me the sum of £150, — which you have borrowed from me; and I must also insist on your letting me have back the present of silver which was prepared for your niece’s marriage. That you should retain it as a perquisite for yourself cannot for a moment be thought of, however convenient it might be to yourself.

Yours, &c.,

E. Eustace
.
 

As far as the application for restitution went, or indeed in regard to the insult, she might as well have written to a milestone. Mrs. Carbuncle was much too strong, and had fought her battle with the world much too long, to regard such word-pelting as that. She paid no attention to the note, and as she had come to terms with the agent of the house by which she was to evacuate it on the following Monday, — a fact which was communicated to Lizzie by the servant, — she did not much regard Lizzie’s threat to remain there. She knew, moreover, that arrangements were already being made for the journey to Scotland.

Lizzie had come back from the attorney’s chambers in triumph, and had been triumphant when she wrote her note to Mrs. Carbuncle; but her elation was considerably repressed by a short notice which she read in the fashionable evening paper of the day. She always took the fashionable evening paper, and had taught herself to think that life without it was impossible. But on this afternoon she quarrelled with that fashionable evening paper for ever. The popular and well-informed organ of intelligence in question informed its readers, that the Eustace diamonds — &c., &c. In fact, it told the whole story; and then expressed a hope that, as the matter had from the commencement been one of great interest to the public, who had sympathised with Lady Eustace deeply as to the loss of her diamonds, Lady Eustace would be able to explain that part of her conduct which certainly, at present, was quite unintelligible. Lizzie threw the paper from her with indignation, asking what right newspaper scribblers could have to interfere with the private affairs of such persons as herself!

But on this evening the question of her answer to Lord Fawn was the one which most interested her. Lord Fawn had taken long in the writing of his letter, and she was justified in taking what time she pleased in answering it; — but, for her own sake, it had better be answered quickly. She had tried her hand at two different replies, and did not at all doubt but what she would send the affirmative answer, if she were sure that these latter discoveries would not alter Lord Fawn’s decision. Lord Fawn had distinctly told her that, if she pleased, he would marry her. She would please; — having been much troubled by the circumstances of the past six months. But then, was it not almost a certainty that Lord Fawn would retreat from his offer on learning the facts which were now so well known as to have been related in the public papers? She thought that she would take one more night to think of it.

Alas! she took one night too many. On the next morning, while she was still in bed, a letter was brought to her from Lord Fawn, dated from his club the preceding evening. “Lord Fawn presents his compliments to Lady Eustace. Lady Eustace will be kind enough to understand that Lord Fawn recedes altogether from the proposition made by him in his letter to Lady Eustace dated March 28th last. Should Lady Eustace think proper to call in question the propriety of this decision on the part of Lord Fawn, she had better refer the question to some friend, and Lord Fawn will do the same. Lord Fawn thinks it best to express his determination, under no circumstances, to communicate again personally with Lady Eustace on this subject, — or, as far as he can see at present, on any other.”

The letter was a blow to her, although she had felt quite certain that Lord Fawn would have no difficulty in escaping from her hands as soon as the story of the diamonds should be made public. It was a blow to her, although she had assured herself a dozen times that a marriage with such a one as Lord Fawn, a man who had not a grain of poetry in his composition, would make her unutterably wretched. What escape would her heart have had from itself in such a union? This question she had asked herself over and over again, and there had been no answer to it. But then why had she not been beforehand with Lord Fawn? Why had she not rejected his second offer with the scorn which such an offer had deserved? Ah, — there was her misfortune; there was her fault!

But, with Lizzie Eustace, when she could not do a thing which it was desirable that she should be known to have done, the next consideration was whether she could not so arrange as to seem to have done it. The arrival of Lord Fawn’s note just as she was about to write to him, was unfortunate. But she would still write to him, and date her letter before the time that his was dated. He probably would not believe her date. She hardly ever expected to be really believed by anybody. But he would have to read what she wrote; and writing on this pretence, she would avoid the necessity of alluding to his last letter.

Neither of the notes which she had by her quite suited the occasion, — so she wrote a third. The former letter in which she declined his offer was, she thought, very charmingly insolent, and the allusion to his lordship’s scullion would have been successful, had it been sent on the moment, but now a graver letter was required, — and the graver letter was as follows: —
 

Hertford Street, Wednesday, April 3.
 

— The date, it will be observed, was the day previous to the morning on which she had received Lord Fawn’s last very conclusive note. —
 

My Lord
,

I have taken a week to answer the letter which your lordship has done me the honour of writing to me, because I have thought it best to have time for consideration in a matter of such importance. In this I have copied your lordship’s official caution.

I think I never read a letter so false, so unmanly, and so cowardly, as that which you have found yourself capable of sending to me.

You became engaged to me when, as I admit with shame, I did not know your character. You have since repudiated me and vilified my name, simply because, having found that I had enemies, and being afraid to face them, you wished to escape from your engagement. It has been cowardice from the beginning to the end. Your whole conduct to me has been one long, unprovoked insult, studiously concocted, because you have feared that there might possibly be some trouble for you to encounter. Nobody ever heard of anything so mean, either in novels or in real life.

And now you again offer to marry me, — because you are again afraid. You think you will be thrashed, I suppose, if you decline to keep your engagement; and feel that if you offer to go on with it, my friends cannot beat you. You need not be afraid. No earthly consideration would induce me to be your wife. And if any friend of mine should look at you as though he meant to punish you, you can show him this letter and make him understand that it is I who have refused to be your wife, and not you who have refused to be my husband.

E. Eustace
.
 

This epistle Lizzie did send, believing that she could add nothing to its insolence, let her study it as she might. And, she thought, as she read it for the fifth time, that it sounded as though it had been written before her receipt of the final note from himself, and that it would, therefore, irritate him the more.

This was to be the last week of her sojourn in town, and then she was to go down and bury herself at Portray, with no other companionship than that of the faithful Macnulty, who had been left in Scotland for the last three months as nurse-in-chief to the little heir. She must go and give her evidence before the magistrate on Friday, as to which she had already received an odious slip of paper; — but Frank would accompany her. Other misfortunes had passed off so lightly that she hardly dreaded this. She did not quite understand why she was to be so banished, and thought much on the subject. She had submitted herself to Frank’s advice when first she had begun to fear that her troubles would be insuperable. Her troubles were now disappearing; and, as for Frank, — what was Frank to her, that she should obey him? Nevertheless, her trunks were being already packed, and she knew that she must go. He was to accompany her on her journey, and she would still have one more chance with him.

As she was thinking of all this, Mr. Emilius, the clergyman, was announced. In her loneliness she was delighted to receive any visitor, and she knew that Mr. Emilius would be at least courteous to her. When he had seated himself, he at once began to talk about the misfortune of the unaccomplished marriage, and in a very low voice hinted that from the beginning to end there had been something wrong. He had always feared that an alliance based on a footing that was so openly “pecuniary,” — he declared that the word pecuniary expressed his meaning better than any other epithet, — could not lead to matrimonial happiness. “We all know,” said he, “that our dear friend, Mrs. Carbuncle, had views of her own quite distinct from her niece’s happiness. I have the greatest possible respect for Mrs. Carbuncle, — and I may say esteem; but it is impossible to live long in any degree of intimacy with Mrs. Carbuncle without seeing that she is — mercenary.”