Lizzie put off her journey to Scotland from day to day, though her cousin Frank continually urged upon her the expediency of going. There were various reasons, he said, why she should go. Her child was there, and it was proper that she should be with her child. She was living at present with people whose reputation did not stand high, and as to whom all manner of evil reports were flying about the town. It was generally thought — so said Frank — that that Lord George de Bruce Carruthers had assisted Mr. Benjamin in stealing the diamonds, and Frank himself did not hesitate to express his belief in the accusation.
“Oh no, that cannot be,” said Lizzie, trembling. But, though she rejected the supposition, she did not reject it very firmly. “And then, you know,” continued Lizzie, “I never see him. I have actually only set eyes on him once since the second robbery, and then just for a minute. Of course I used to know him — down at Portray — but now we are strangers.” Frank went on with his objections. He declared that the manner in which Mrs. Carbuncle had got up the match between Lucinda Roanoke and Sir Griffin was shameful — all the world was declaring that it was shameful — that she had not a penny, that the girl was an adventurer, and that Sir Griffin was an obstinate, pig-headed, ruined idiot. It was expedient on every account that Lizzie should take herself away from that “lot.” The answer that Lizzie desired to make was very simple. Let me go as your betrothed bride, and I will start tomorrow to Scotland or elsewhere, as you may direct. Let that little affair be settled, and I shall be quite as willing to get out of London as you can be to send me. But I am in such a peck of troubles that something must be settled. And as it seems that after all the police are still astray about the necklace, perhaps I needn’t run away from them for a little while even yet. She did not say this. She did not even in so many words make the first proposition. But she did endeavour to make Frank understand that she would obey his dictation if he would earn the right to dictate. He either did not or would not understand her, and then she became angry with him or pretended to be angry.
“Really, Frank,” she said, “you are hardly fair to me.”
“In what way am I unfair?”
“You come here and abuse all my friends, and tell me to go here and go there, just as though I were a child. And — and — and —”
“And what, Lizzie?”
“You know what I mean. You are one thing one day, and one another. I hope Miss Lucy Morris was quite well when you last heard from her?”
“You have no right to speak to me of Lucy — at least, not in disparagement.”
“You are treating her very badly — you know that.”
“I am.”
“Then why don’t you give it up? Why don’t you let her have her chances — to do what she can with them? You know very well that you can’t marry her. You know that you ought not to have asked her. You talk of Miss Roanoke and Sir Griffin Tewett. There are people quite as bad as Sir Griffin, or Mrs. Carbuncle either. Don’t suppose I am speaking for myself. I’ve given up all that idle fancy long ago. I shall never marry a second time myself. I have made up my mind to that. I have suffered too much already.” Then she burst into tears.
He dried her tears and comforted her, and forgave all the injurious things she had said of him. It is almost impossible for a man — a man under forty and unmarried, and who is not a philosopher — to have familiar and affectionate intercourse with a beautiful young woman, and carry it on as he might do with a friend of the other sex. In his very heart Greystock despised this woman; he had told himself over and over again that were there no Lucy in the case he would not marry her; that she was affected, unreal — and in fact a liar in every word and look and motion which came from her with premeditation. Judging, not from her own account, but from circumstances as he saw them, and such evidence as had reached him, he did not condemn her in reference to the diamonds. He had never for a moment conceived that she had secreted them. He acquitted her altogether from those special charges which had been widely circulated against her; but nevertheless he knew her to be heartless and bad. He had told himself a dozen times that it would be well for him that she should be married and taken out of his hands. And yet he loved her after a fashion, and was prone to sit near her, and was fool enough to be flattered by her caresses. When she would lay her hand on his arm, a thrill of pleasure went through him. And yet he would willingly have seen any decent man take her and marry her, making a bargain that he should never see her again. Young or old, men are apt to become Merlins when they encounter Viviens. On this occasion he left her, disgusted indeed, but not having told her that he was disgusted. “Come again, Frank, tomorrow, won’t you?” she said. He made her no promise as he went, nor had she expected it. He had left her quite abruptly the other day, and he now went away almost in the same fashion. But she was not surprised. She understood that the task she had in hand was one very difficult to be accomplished — and she did perceive in some dark way that, good as her acting was, it was not quite good enough. Lucy held her ground because she was real. You may knock about a diamond and not even scratch it, whereas paste in rough usage betrays itself. Lizzie, with all her self-assuring protestations, knew that she was paste, and knew that Lucy was real stone. Why could she not force herself to act a little better, so that the paste might be as good as the stone — might at least seem to be as good? “If he despises me now, what will he say when he finds it all out?” she asked herself.
As for Frank Greystock himself, though he had quite made up his mind about Lizzie Eustace, he was still in doubt about the other girl. At the present moment he was making over two thousand pounds a year, and yet was more in debt now than he had been a year ago. When he attempted to look at his affairs, he could not even remember what had become of his money. He did not gamble. He had no little yacht, costing him about six hundred a year. He kept one horse in London, and one only. He had no house. And when he could spare time from his work, he was generally entertained at the houses of his friends. And yet from day to day his condition seemed to become worse and worse. It was true that he never thought of half-a-sovereign; that in calling for wine at his club he was never influenced by the cost; that it seemed to him quite rational to keep a cab waiting for him half the day, that in going or coming he never calculated expense, that in giving an order to a tailor he never dreamed of anything beyond his own comfort. Nevertheless, when he recounted with pride his great economies, reminding himself that he, a successful man, with a large income and no family, kept neither hunters, nor yacht, nor moor, and that he did not gamble, he did think it very hard that he should be embarrassed. But he was embarrassed, and in that condition could it be right for him to marry a girl without a shilling?
In these days Mrs. Carbuncle was very urgent with her friend not to leave London till after the marriage. Lizzie had given no promise, had only been induced to promise that the loan of one hundred and fifty pounds should not be held to have any bearing on the wedding present to be made to Lucinda. That could be got on credit from Messrs. Harter & Benjamin; for though Mr. Benjamin was absent — on a little tour through Europe in search of precious stones in the cheap markets old Mr. Harter suggested — the business went on the same as ever. There was a good deal of consultation about the present, and Mrs. Carbuncle at last decided, no doubt with the concurrence of Miss Roanoke, that it should consist simply of silver forks and spoons — real silver as far as the money would go. Mrs. Carbuncle herself went with her friend to select the articles — as to which perhaps we shall do her no injustice in saying that a ready sale, should such a lamentable occurrence ever become necessary, was one of the objects which she had in view. Mrs. Carbuncle’s investigations as to the quality of the metal quite won Mr. Harter’s respect; and it will probably be thought that she exacted no more than justice — seeing that the thing had become a matter of bargain — in demanding that the thirty-five pounds should be stretched to fifty, because the things were bought on long credit. “My dear Lizzie,” Mrs. Carbuncle said, “the dear girl won’t have an ounce more than she would have got, had you gone into another sort of shop with thirty-five sovereigns in your hand.” Lizzie growled, but Mrs. Carbuncle’s final argument was conclusive. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said she; “we’ll take thirty pounds down in ready money.” There was no answer to be made to so reasonable a proposition.
The presents to be made to Lucinda were very much thought of in Hertford Street at this time, and Lizzie — independently of any feeling that she might have as to her own contribution — did all she could to assist the collection of tribute. It was quite understood that as a girl can be married only once — for a widow’s chance in such matters amounts............