“I don’t think I’d do that, Lizzie.”
“Why not? You always tell me what not to do, but you never say what I ought!”
“That is because I am so wise and prudent. If you were to attempt to sell the diamonds they would stop you, and would not give you credit for the generous purpose afterwards.”
“They wouldn’t stop you if you sold the ring you wear.” The ring had been given to him by Lucy after their engagement, and was the only present she had ever made him. It had been purchased out of her own earnings, and had been put on his finger by her own hand. Either from accident or craft he had not worn it when he had been before at Portray, and Lizzie had at once observed it as a thing she had never seen before. She knew well that he would not buy such a ring. Who had given him the ring? Frank almost blushed as he looked down at the trinket, and Lizzie was sure that it had been given by that sly little creeping thing, Lucy. “Let me look at the ring,” she said. “Nobody could stop you if you chose to sell this to me.”
“Little things are always less troublesome than big things,” he said.
“What is the price?” she asked.
“It is not in the market, Lizzie. Nor should your diamonds be there. You must be content to let them take what legal steps they may think fit, and defend your property. After that you can do as you please; but keep them safe till the thing is settled. If I were you I would have them at the bankers.”
“Yes;—and then when I asked for them be told that they couldn’t be given up to me, because of Mr. Camperdown or the Lord Chancellor. And what’s the good of a thing locked up? You wear your ring;—why shouldn’t I wear my necklace?”
“I have nothing to say against it.”
“It isn’t that I care for such things. Do I, Julia?”
“All ladies like them, I suppose,” said that stupidest and most stubborn of all humble friends, Miss Macnulty.
“I don’t like them at all, and you know I don’t. I hate them. They have been the misery of my life. Oh, how they have tormented me! Even when I am asleep I dream about them, and think that people steal them. They have never given me one moment’s happiness. When I have them on I am always fearing that Camperdown and Son are behind me and are going to clutch them. And I think too well of myself to believe that anybody will care more for me because of a necklace. The only good they have ever done me has been to save me from a man who I now know never cared for me. But they are mine;—and therefore I choose to keep them. Though I am only a woman I have an idea of my own rights, and will defend them as far as they go. If you say I ought not to sell them, Frank, I’ll keep them; but I’ll wear them as commonly as you do that gage d’amour which you carry on your finger. Nobody shall ever see me without them. I won’t go to any old dowager’s tea-party without them. Mr. John Eustace has chosen to accuse me of stealing them.”
“I don’t think John Eustace has ever said a word about them,” said Frank.
“Mr. Camperdown, then;—the people who choose to call themselves the guardians and protectors of my boy, as if I were not his best guardian and protector! I’ll show them at any rate that I’m not ashamed of my booty. I don’t see why I should lock them up in a musty old bank. Why don’t you send your ring to the bank?” Frank could not but feel that she did it all very well. In the first place she was very pretty in the display of her half-mock indignation. Though she used some strong words, she used them with an air that carried them off and left no impression that she had been either vulgar or violent. And then, though the indignation was half mock, it was also half real, and her courage and spirit were attractive. Greystock had at last taught himself to think that Mr. Camperdown was not justified in the claim which he made, and that in consequence of that unjust claim Lizzie Eustace had been subjected to ill-usage. “Did you ever see this bone of contention,” she asked;—“this fair Helen for which Greeks and Romans are to fight?”
“I never saw the necklace, if you mean that.”
“I’ll fetch it. You ought to see it, as you have to talk about it so often.”
“Can I get it?” asked Miss Macnulty.
“Heaven and earth! To suppose that I should ever keep them under less than seven keys, and that there should be any of the locks that anybody should be able to open except myself!”
“And where are the seven keys?” asked Frank.
“Next to my heart,” said Lizzie, putting her hand on her left side. “And when I sleep they are always tied round my neck in a bag, and the bag never escapes from my grasp. And I have such a knife under my pillow, ready for Mr. Camperdown should he come to seize them!” Then she ran out of the room, and in a couple of minutes returned with the necklace hanging loose in her hand. It was part of her little play to show by her speed
