What did it matter now where she went? And yet she must go somewhere, and do something. There remained to her the wearisome possession of herself, and while she lived she must eat, and have clothes, and require shelter. She could not dawdle out a bitter existence under Lady Fawn’s roof, eating the bread of charity, hanging about the rooms and shrubberies useless and idle. How bitter to her was that possession of herself, as she felt that there was nothing good to be done with the thing so possessed! She doubted even whether ever again she could become serviceable as a governess, and whether the energy would be left to her of earning her bread by teaching adequately the few things that she knew. But she must make the attempt—and must go on making it, till God in his mercy should take her to himself.
And yet but a few months since life had been so sweet to her! As she felt this she was not thinking of those short days of excited, feverish bliss in which she had believed that all the good things of the world were to be showered into her lap; but of previous years in which everything had been with her as it was now—with the one exception that she had not then been deceived. She had been full of smiles, and humour, and mirth, absolutely happy among her friends, though conscious of the necessity of earning her bread by the exercise of a most precarious profession—while elated by no hope. Though she had loved the man and had been hopeless, she was happy. But now, surely, of all maidens and of all women, she was the most forlorn.
Having once acceded to the truth of Lady Fawn’s views, she abandoned all hope. Everybody said so, and it was so. There was no word from any side to encourage her. The thing was done and over, and she would never mention his name again. She would simply beg of all the Fawns that no allusion might be made to him in her presence. She would never blame him, and certainly she would never praise him. As far as she could rule her tongue, she would never have his name upon her lips again.
She thought for a time that she would send the letter which she had already written. Any other letter she could not bring herself to write. Even to think of him was an agony to her; but to communicate her thoughts to him was worse than agony. It would be almost madness. What need was there for any letter? If the thing was done, it was done. Perhaps there remained with her—staying by her without her own knowledge, some faint spark of hope, that even yet he might return to her. At last she resolved that there should be no letter, and she destroyed that which she had written.
But she did write a note to Lady Fawn, in which she gratefully accepted her old friend’s kindness till such time as she could “find a place.” “As to that other subject,” she said, “I know that you are right. Please let it all be as though it had never been.”
LXI
Lizzie’s Great Friend
The Saturday morning came at last for which Lord Fawn had made his appointment with Lizzie, and a very important day it was in Hertford Street—chiefly on account of his lordship’s visit, but also in respect to other events which crowded themselves into the day. In the telling of our tale, we have gone a little in advance of this, as it was not till the subsequent Monday that Lady Linlithgow read in the newspaper, and told Lucy, how a man had been arrested on account of the robbery. Early on the Saturday morning Sir Griffin Tewett was in Hertford Street, and, as Lizzie afterwards understood, there was a terrible scene between both him and Lucinda and him and Mrs. Carbuncle. She saw nothing of it herself, but Mrs. Carbuncle brought her the tidings. For the last few days Mrs. Carbuncle had been very affectionate in her manner to Lizzie, thereby showing a great change; for during nearly the whole of February the lady, who in fact owned the house, had hardly been courteous to her remunerative guest, expressing more than once a hint that the arrangement which had brought them together had better come to an end. “You see, Lady Eustace,” Mrs. Carbuncle had once said, “the trouble about these robberies is almost too much for me.” Lizzie, who was ill at the time, and still trembling with constant fear on account of the lost diamonds, had taken advantage of her sick condition, and declined to argue the question of her removal. Now she was supposed to be convalescent, but Mrs. Carbuncle had returned to her former ways of affection. No doubt there was cause for this—cause that was patent to Lizzie herself. Lady Glencora Palliser had called—which thing alone was felt by Lizzie to alter her position altogether. And then, though her diamonds were gone, and though the thieves who had stolen them were undoubtedly aware of her secret as to the first robbery, though she had herself told that secret to Lord George, whom she had not seen since she had done so—in spite of all these causes for trouble, she had of late gradually found herself to be emerging from the
