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The Eustace Diamonds

A >> Anthony Trollope >> The Eustace Diamonds




"Yes, I do. That little girl has cozened you out of a promise."

"If it be so, you would not have me break it?"

"Yes, I would, if you think she is not fit to be your wife. Is a man such
as you are, to be tied by the leg for life, have all his ambition clipped,
and his high hopes shipwrecked, because a girl has been clever enough to
extract a word from him? Is it not true that you are in debt?"

"What of that? At any rate, Lizzie, I do not want help from you."

"That is so like a man's pride! Do we not all know that in such a career
as you have marked out for yourself, wealth, or at any rate an easy
income, is necessary? Do you think that I cannot put two and two together?
Do you believe so meanly of me as to imagine that I should have said to
you what I have said, if I did not know that I could help you? A man, I
believe, cannot understand that love which induces a woman to sacrifice
her pride simply for his advantage. I want to see you prosper. I want to
see you a great man and a lord, and I know that you cannot become so
without an income. Ah, I wish I could give you all that I have got, and
save you from the encumbrance that is attached to it!"

It might be that he would then have told her of his engagement to Lucy,
and of his resolution to adhere to that promise, had not Mrs. Carbuncle at
that moment entered the room. Frank had been there for above an hour, and
as Lizzie was still an invalid, and to some extent under the care of Mrs.
Carbuncle, it was natural that that lady should interfere. "You know, my
dear, you should not exhaust yourself altogether. Mr. Emilius is to come
to you this afternoon."

"Mr. Emilius!" said Greystock.

"Yes--the clergyman. Don't you remember him at Portray? A dark man with
eyes close together! You used to be very wicked, and say that he was once
a Jew boy in the streets." Lizzie, as she spoke of her spiritual guide,
was evidently not desirous of doing him much honour.

"I remember him well enough. He made sheep's eyes at Miss Macnulty, and
drank a great deal of wine at dinner."

"Poor Macnulty! I don't believe a word about the wine; and as for
Macnulty, I don't see why she should not be converted as well as another.
He is coming here to read to me. I hope you don't object."

"Not in the least--if you like it."

"One does have solemn thoughts sometimes, Frank--especially when one is
ill."

"Oh, yes. Well or ill, one does have solemn thoughts--ghosts, as it were,
which will appear. But is Mr. Emilius good at laying such apparitions?"

"He is a clergyman, Mr. Greystock," said Mrs. Carbuncle, with something of
rebuke in her voice.

"So they tell me. I was not present at his ordination, but I dare say it
was done according to rule. When one reflects what a deal of harm a bishop
may do, one wishes that there was some surer way of getting bishops."

"Do you know anything against Mr. Emilius?" asked Lizzie.

"Nothing at all but his looks, and manners, and voice, unless it be that
he preaches popular sermons, and drinks too much wine, and makes sheep's
eyes at Miss Macnulty. Look after your silver spoons, Mrs. Carbuncle, if
the last thieves have left you any. You were asking after the fate of your
diamonds, Lizzie. Perhaps they will endow a Protestant church in Mr.
Emilius's native land."

Mr. Emilius did come and read to Lady Eustace that afternoon. A clergyman
is as privileged to enter the bedroom of a sick lady as is a doctor or a
cousin. There was another clean cap, and another laced handkerchief, and
on this occasion a little shawl over Lizzie's shoulders. Mr. Emilius first
said a prayer, kneeling at Lizzie's bedside; then he read a chapter in the
Bible; and after that he read the first half of the fourth canto of Childe
Harold so well, that Lizzie felt for the moment that after all poetry was
life, and life was poetry.




CHAPTER LIV

"I SUPPOSE I MAY SAY A WORD"


The second robbery to which Lady Eustace had been subjected by no means
decreased the interest which was attached to her and her concerns in the
fashionable world. Parliament had now met, and the party at Matching
Priory, Lady Glencora Palliser's party in the country, had been to some
extent broken up. All those gentlemen who were engaged in the service of
Her Majesty's Government had necessarily gone to London, and they who had
wives at Matching had taken their wives with them. Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen
had seen the last of their holiday; Mr. Palliser himself was, of course,
at his post; and all the private secretaries were with the public
secretaries on the scene of action. On the 13th of February Mr. Palliser
made his first great statement in Parliament on the matter of the five-
farthinged penny, and pledged himself to do his very best to carry that
stupendous measure through Parliament in the present session. The City men
who were in the House that night, and all the directors of the Bank of
England, were in the gallery, and every chairman of a great banking
company, and every Baring and every Rothschild, if there be Barings and
Rothschilds who have not been returned by constituencies, and have not
seats in the House by right, agreed in declaring that the job in hand was
too much for any one member or any one session. Some said that such a
measure never could be passed, because the unfinished work of one session
could not be used in lessening the labours of the next. Everything must be
recommenced; and therefore, so said these hopeless ones, the penny with
five farthings, the penny of which a hundred would make ten shillings, the
halcyon penny which would make all future pecuniary calculations easy to
the meanest British capacity, could never become the law of the land.
Others, more hopeful, were willing to believe that gradually the thing
would so sink into the minds of members of Parliament, of writers of
leading articles, and of the active public generally, as to admit of
certain established axioms being taken as established, and placed, as it
were, beyond the procrastinating power of debate. It might, for instance,
at last be taken for granted that a decimal system was desirable, so that
a month or two of the spring need not be consumed on that preliminary
question. But this period had not as yet been reached, and it was thought
by the entire City that Mr. Palliser was much too sanguine. It was so
probable, many said, that he might kill himself by labour which would be
Herculean in all but success, and that no financier after him would
venture to face the task. It behooved Lady Glencora to see that her
Hercules did not kill himself.

In this state of affairs Lady Glencora, into whose hands the custody of
Mr. Palliser's uncle, the duke, had now altogether fallen, had a divided
duty between Matching and London. When the members of Parliament went up
to London, she went there also, leaving some half-dozen friends whom she
could trust to amuse the duke; but she soon returned, knowing that there
might be danger in a long absence. The duke, though old, was his own
master; he much affected the company of Madame Goesler, and that lady's
kindness to him was considerate and incessant; but there might still be
danger, and Lady Glencora felt that she was responsible that the old
nobleman should do nothing, in the feebleness of age, to derogate from the
splendour of his past life. What if some day his grace should be off to
Paris and insist on making Madame Goesler a duchess in the chapel of the
Embassy? Madame Goesler had hitherto behaved very well; would probably
continue to behave well. Lady Glencora really loved Madame Goesler. But
then the interests at stake were very great! So circumstanced, Lady
Glencora found herself compelled to be often on the road between Matching
and London.

But though she was burthened with great care, Lady Glencora by no means
dropped her interest in the Eustace diamonds; and when she learned that on
the top of the great Carlisle robbery a second robbery had been
superadded, and that this had been achieved while all the London police
were yet astray about the former operation, her solicitude was of course
enhanced. The duke himself, too, took the matter up so strongly that he
almost wanted to be carried up to London, with some view, as it was
supposed by the ladies who were so good to him, of seeing Lady Eustace
personally.

"It's out of the question, my dear," Lady Glencora said to Madame Goesler,
when the duke's fancy was first mentioned to her by that lady.

"I told him that the trouble would be too much for him."

"Of course it would be too much," said Lady Glencora. "It is quite out of
the question." Then after a moment she added, in a whisper, "Who knows but
what he'd insist on marrying her? It isn't every woman that can resist
temptation." Madame Goesler smiled and shook her head, but made no answer
to Lady Glencora's suggestion. Lady Glencora assured her uncle that
everything should be told to him. She would write about it daily, and send
him the latest news by the wires if the post should be too slow.

"Ah, yes," said the duke. "I like telegrams best. I think, you know, that
that Lord George Carruthers had had something to do with it. Don't you,
Madame Goesler?" It had long been evident that the duke was anxious that
one of his own order should be proved to have been the thief, as the
plunder taken was so lordly.

In regard to Lizzie herself, Lady Glencora, on her return to London, took
it into her head to make a diversion in our heroine's favour. It had
hitherto been a matter of faith with all the liberal party that Lady
Eustace had had something to do with stealing her own diamonds. That
_esprit de corps_ which is the glorious characteristic of English
statesmen had caused the whole Government to support Lord Fawn, and Lord
Fawn could be supported only on the supposition that Lizzie Eustace had
been a wicked culprit. But Lady Glencora, though very true as a
politician, was apt to have opinions of her own, and to take certain
flights in which she chose that others of the party should follow her. She
now expressed an opinion that Lady Eustace was a victim, and all the Mrs.
Bonteens, with some even of the Mr. Bonteens, found themselves compelled
to agree with her. She stood too high among her set to be subject to that
obedience which restrained others; too high, also, for others to resist
her leading. As a member of a party she was erratic and dangerous, but
from her position and peculiar temperament she was powerful. When she
declared that poor Lady Eustace was a victim, others were obliged to say
so too. This was particularly hard upon Lord Fawn, and the more so as Lady
Glencora took upon her to assert that Lord Fawn had no right to jilt the
young woman. And Lady Glencora had this to support her views--that for the
last week past, indeed ever since the depositions which had been taken
after the robbery in Hertford Street, the police had expressed no fresh
suspicions in regard to Lizzie Eustace. She heard daily from Barrington
Erie that Major Mackintosh and Bunfit and Gager were as active as ever in
their inquiries, that all Scotland Yard was determined to unravel the
mystery, and that there were emissaries at work tracking the diamonds at
Hamburg, Paris, Vienna, and New York. It had been whispered to Mr. Erie
that the whereabouts of Patience Crabstick had been discovered, and that
many of the leading thieves in London were assisting the police; but
nothing more was done in the way of fixing any guilt upon Lizzie Eustace.
"Upon my word, I am beginning to think that she has been more sinned
against than sinning." This was said to Lady Glencora on the morning after
Mr. Palliser's great speech about the five farthings, by Barrington Erie,
who, as it seemed, had been specially told off by the party to watch this
investigation.

"I am sure she has had nothing to do with it. I have thought so ever since
the last robbery. Sir Simon Slope told me yesterday afternoon that Mr.
Camperdown has given it up altogether." Sir Simon Slope was the Solicitor-
General of that day.

"It would be absurd for him to go on with his bill in Chancery now that
the diamonds are gone, unless he meant to make her pay for them."

"That would be rank persecution. Indeed, she has been persecuted. I shall
call upon her." Then she wrote the following letter to the duke:

"FEBRUARY 14, 18--.

"MY DEAR DUKE: Plantagenet was on his legs last night for three hours and
three-quarters, and I sat through it all. As far as I could observe
through the bars I was the only person in the House who listened to him.
I'm sure Mr. Gresham was fast asleep. It was quite piteous to see some of
them yawning. Plantagenet did it very well, and I almost think I
understood him. They seem to say that nobody on the other side will take
trouble enough to make a regular opposition, but there are men in the City
who will write letters to the newspapers, and get up a sort of Bank
clamour. Plantagenet says nothing about it, but there is a do-or-die
manner with him which is quite tragical. The House was up at eleven, when
he came home and eat three oysters; drank a glass of beer, and slept well.
They say the real work will come when it's in Committee; that is, if it
gets there. The bill is to be brought in, and will be read the first time
next Monday week.

"As to the robberies, I believe there is no doubt that the police have got
hold of the young woman. They don't arrest her, but deal with her in a
friendly sort of way. Barrington Erle says that a sergeant is to marry her
in order to make quite sure of her. I suppose they know their business;
but that wouldn't strike me as being the safest way. They seem to think
the diamonds went to Paris, but have since been sent on to New York.

"As to the little widow, I do believe she has been made a victim. She
first lost her diamonds, and now her other jewels and her money have gone.
I cannot see what she was to gain by treachery, and I think she has been
ill-used. She is staying at the house of that Mrs. Carbuncle, but all the
same I shall go and call on her. I wish you could see her, because she is
such a little beauty, just what you would like; not so much colour as our
friend, but perfect features, with infinite play, not perhaps always in
the best taste; but then we can't have everything, can we, dear duke?

"As to the real thief--of course you must burn this at once, and keep it
strictly private as coming from me--I fancy that delightful Scotch lord
managed it entirely. The idea is, that he did it on commission for the Jew
jewellers. I don't suppose he had money enough to carry it out himself. As
to the second robbery, whether he had or had not a hand in that, I can't
make up my mind. I don't see why he shouldn't. If a man does go into a
business, he ought to make the best of it. Of course it was a poor thing
after the diamonds; but still it was worth having. There is some story
about a Sir Griffin Tewett. He's a real Sir Griffin, as you'll find by the
peerage. He was to marry a young woman, and our Lord George insists that
he shall marry her. I don't understand all about it, but the girl lives in
the same house with Lady Eustace, and if I call I shall find out. They say
that Sir Griffin knows all about the necklace, and threatens to tell
unless he is let off marrying. I rather think the girl is Lord George's
daughter, so that there is a thorough complication.

"I shall go down to Matching on Saturday. If anything turns up before
that, I'll write again, or send a message. I don't know whether
Plantagenet will be able to leave London. He says he must be back on
Monday, and that he loses too much time on the road. Kiss my little
darlings for me"--the darlings were Lady Glencora's children, and the
duke's playthings--"and give my love to Madame Max. I suppose you don't
see much of the others.

"Most affectionately yours,

"GLENCORA."

On the next day Lady Glencora actually did call in Hertford Street and saw
our friend Lizzie. She was told by the servant that Lady Eustace was in
bed; but, with her usual persistence, she asked questions, and when she
found that Lizzie did receive visitors in her room, she sent up her card.
The compliment was one much too great to be refused. Lady Glencora stood
so high in the world that her countenance would be almost as valuable as
another lover. If Lord George would keep her secret, and Lady Glencora
would be her friend, might she not still be a successful woman? So Lady
Glencora Palliser was shown up to Lizzie's chamber. Lizzie was found with
her nicest nightcap and prettiest handkerchief, with a volume of
Tennyson's poetry, and a scent-bottle. She knew that it behooved her to be
very clever at this interview. Her instinct told her that her first
greeting should show more of surprise than of gratification. Accordingly,
in a pretty, feminine, almost childish way, she was very much surprised.
"I'm doing the strangest thing in the world, I know, Lady Eustace," said
Lady Glencora with a smile.

"I'm sure you mean to do a kind thing."

"Well, yes, I do. I think we have not met since you were at my house near
the end of last season."

"No, indeed. I have been in London six weeks, but have not been out much.
For the last fortnight I have been in bed. I have had things to trouble me
so much that they have made me ill."

"So I have heard, Lady Eustace, and I have just come to offer you my
sympathy. When I was told that you did see people, I thought that perhaps
you would admit me."

"So willingly, Lady Glencora!"

"I have heard, of course, of your terrible losses."

"The loss has been as nothing to the vexation that has accompanied it. I
don't know how to speak of it. Ladies have lost their jewels before now,
but I don't know that any lady before me has ever been accused of stealing
them herself."

"There has been no accusation, surely?"

"I haven't exactly been put in prison, Lady Glencora, but I have had
policemen here wanting to search my things; and then you know yourself
what reports have been spread."

"Oh, yes, I do. Only for that, to tell you plainly, I should hardly have
been here now." Then Lady Glencora poured out her sympathy--perhaps with
more eloquence and grace than discretion. She was, at any rate, both
graceful and eloquent. "As for the loss of the diamonds, I think you bear
it wonderfully," said Lady Glencora.

"If you could imagine how little I care about it!" said Lizzie with
enthusiasm. "They had lost the delight which I used to feel in them as a
present from my husband. People had talked about them, and I had been
threatened because I chose to keep what I knew to be my own. Of course I
would not give them up. Would you have given them up, Lady Glencora?"

"Certainly not."

"Nor would I. But when once all that had begun, they became an
irrepressible burden to me. I often used to say that I would throw them
into the sea."

"I don't think I would have done that," said Lady Glencora.

"Ah--you have never suffered as I have suffered."

"We never know where each other's shoes pinch each other's toes."

"You have never been left desolate. You have a husband and friends."

"A husband that wants to put five farthings into a penny! All is not gold
that glistens, Lady Eustace."

"You can never have known trials such as mine," continued Lizzie, not
understanding in the least her new friend's allusion to the great currency
question. "Perhaps you may have heard that in the course of last summer I
became engaged to marry a nobleman, with whom I am aware that you are
acquainted." This she said in her softest whisper.

"Oh, yes--Lord Fawn. I know him very well. Of course I heard of it. We all
heard of it."

"And you have heard how he has treated me?"

"Yes--indeed."

"I will say nothing about him--to you, Lady Glencora. It would not be
proper that I should do so. But all that came of this wretched necklace.
After that, can you wonder that I should say that I wish these stones had
been thrown into the sea?"

"I suppose Lord Fawn will--will come all right again now?" said Lady
Glencora.

"All right!" exclaimed Lizzie in astonishment.

"His objection to the marriage will now be over."

"I'm sure I do not in the least know what are his lordship's views," said
Lizzie in scorn, "and, to tell the truth, I do not very much care."

"What I mean is, that he didn't like you to have the Eustace diamonds----"

"They were not Eustace diamonds. They were my diamonds."

"But he did not like you to have them; and as they are now gone--
forever----"

"Oh, yes, they are gone forever."

"His objection is gone too. Why don't you write to him, and make him come
and see you? That's what I should do."

Lizzie, of course, repudiated vehemently any idea of forcing Lord Fawn
into a marriage which had become distasteful to him--let the reason be
what it might.

"His lordship is perfectly free, as far as I am concerned," said Lizzie
with a little show of anger. But all this Lady Glencora took at its worth.
Lizzie Eustace had been a good deal knocked about, and Lady Glencora did
not doubt but that she would be very glad to get back her betrothed
husband. The little woman had suffered hardships, so thought Lady
Glencora--and a good thing would be done by bringing her into fashion, and
setting the marriage up again. As to Lord Fawn--the fortune was there, as
good now as it had been when he first sought it; and the lady was very
pretty, a baronet's widow too--and in all respects good enough for Lord
Fawn. A very pretty little baronet's widow she was, with four thousand a
year, and a house in Scotland, and a history. Lady Glencora determined
that she would remake the match. "I think, you know, friends who have been
friends should be brought together. I suppose I may say a word to Lord
Fawn?" Lizzie hesitated would be sweet to her. She had sworn that she
would be revenged upon Lord Fawn. After all, might it not suit her best to
carry out her oath by marrying him? But whether so or otherwise, it could
not but be well for her that he should be again at her feet. "Yes, if you
think good will come of it." The acquiescence was given with much
hesitation; but the circumstances required that it should be so, and Lady
Glencora fully understood the circumstances. When she took her leave,
Lizzie was profuse in her gratitude. "Oh, Lady Glencora, it has been so
good of you to come. Pray come again, if you can spare me another moment."
Lady Glencora said that she would come again.

During the visit she had asked some question concerning Lucinda and Sir
Griffin, and had been informed that that marriage was to go on. A hint had
been thrown out as to Lucinda's parentage; but Lizzie had not understood
the hint, and the question had not been pressed.




CHAPTER LV

QUINTS OR SEMITENTHS


The task which Lady Glencora had taken upon herself was not a very easy
one. No doubt Lord Fawn was a man subservient to the leaders of his party,
much afraid of the hard judgment of those with whom, he was concerned,
painfully open to impression from what he would have called public
opinion, to a certain extent a coward, most anxious to do right so that he
might not be accused of being in the wrong, and at the same time gifted
with but little of that insight into things which teaches men to know what
is right and what is wrong. Lady Glencora, having perceived all this, felt
that he was a man upon whom a few words from her might have an effect. But
even Lady Glencora might hesitate to tell a gentleman that he ought to
marry a lady, when the gentleman had already declared his intention of not
marrying and had attempted to justify his decision almost publicly by a
reference to the lady's conduct! Lady Glencora almost felt that she had
undertaken too much as she turned over in her mind the means she had of
performing her promise to Lady Eustace.

The five-farthing bill had been laid upon the table on a Tuesday, and was
to be read the first time on the following Monday week. On the Wednesday
Lady Glencora had written to the duke, and had called in Hertford Street.
On the following Sunday she was at Matching, looking after the duke; but
she returned to London on the Tuesday, and on the Wednesday there was a
little dinner at Mr. Palliser's house, given avowedly with the object of
further friendly discussion respecting the new Palliser penny. The prime
minister was to be there, and Mr. Bonteen, and Barrington Erle, and those
special members of the Government who would be available for giving
special help to the financial Hercules of the day. A question, perhaps of
no great practical importance, had occurred to Mr. Palliser, but one
which, if overlooked, might be fatal to the ultimate success of the
measure. There is so much in a name, and then an ounce of ridicule is
often more potent than a hundredweight of argument. By what denomination
should the fifth part of a penny be hereafter known? Some one had, ill-
naturedly, whispered to Mr. Palliser that a farthing meant a fourth, and
at once there arose a new trouble, which for a time bore very heavily on
him. Should he boldly disregard the original meaning of the useful old
word; or should he venture on the dangers of new nomenclature? October, as
he said to himself, is still the tenth month of the year, November the
eleventh, and so on, though by these names they are so plainly called the
eighth and ninth. All France tried to rid itself of this absurdity and
failed. Should he stick by the farthing; or should he call it a fifthing,
a quint, or a semitenth? "There's the 'Fortnightly Review' comes out but
once a month," he said to his friend Mr. Bonteen, "and I'm told that it
does very well." Mr. Bonteen, who was a rational man, thought the "Review"
would do better if it were called by a more rational name, and was very
much in favour of "a quint." Mr. Gresham had expressed an opinion,
somewhat off hand, that English people would never be got to talk about
quints, and so there was a difficulty. A little dinner was therefore
arranged, and Mr. Palliser, as was his custom in such matters, put the
affair of the dinner into his wife's hands. When he was told that she had
included Lord Fawn among the guests he opened his eyes. Lord Fawn, who
might be good enough at the India Office, knew literally nothing about the
penny.

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