“If you were nobody, you would, of course, be indicted for perjury, and would go to prison. As it is, if you will tell all your story to one of your swell friends, I think it very likely that you may be pulled through. I should say that Mr. Eustace, or your cousin Greystock, would be the best.”
“Why couldn’t you do it? You know it all. I told you because—because—because I thought you would be the kindest to me.”
“You told me, my dear, because you thought it would not matter much with me, and I appreciate the compliment. I can do nothing for you. I am not near enough to those who wear wigs.”
Lizzie did not above half understand him—did not at all understand him when he spoke of those who wore wigs, and was quite dark to his irony about her great friends;—but she did perceive that he was in earnest in recommending her to confess. She thought about it for a moment in silence, and the more she thought the more she felt that she could not do it. Had he not suggested a second alternative—that she should go off like Mr. Benjamin? It might be possible that she should go off, and yet be not quite like Mr. Benjamin. In that case ought she not to go under the protection of her Corsair? Would not that be the proper way of going? “Might I not go abroad—just for a time?” she asked.
“And so let it blow over?”
“Just so, you know.”
“It is possible that you might,” he said. “Not that it would blow over altogether. Everybody would know it. It is too late now to stop the police, and if you meant to be off, you should be off at once;—today or tomorrow.”
“Oh dear!”
“Indeed, there’s no saying whether they will let you go. You could start now, this moment;—and if you were at Dover could get over to France. But when once it is known that you had the necklace all that time in your own desk, any magistrate, I imagine, could stop you. You’d better have some lawyer you can trust;—not that blackguard Mopus.”
Lord George had certainly brought her no comfort. When he told her that she might go at once if she chose, she remembered, with a pang of agony, that she had already overdrawn her account at the bankers. She was the actual possessor of an income of four thousand pounds a year, and now, in her terrible strait, she could not stir because she had no money with which to travel. Had all things been well with her, she could, no doubt, have gone to her bankers and have arranged this little difficulty. But as it was, she could not move, because her purse was empty.
Lord George sat looking at her, and thinking whether he would make the plunge and ask her to be his wife—with all her impediments and drawbacks about her. He had been careful to reduce her to such a condition of despair, that she would undoubtedly have accepted him, so that she might have someone to lean upon in her trouble;—but, as he looked at her, he doubted. She was such a mass of deceit, that he was afraid of her. She might say that she would marry him, and then, when the storm was over, refuse to keep her word. She might be in debt—almost to any amount. She might be already married, for anything that he knew. He did know that she was subject to all manner of penalties for what she had done. He looked at her, and told himself that she was very pretty. But in spite of her beauty, his judgment went against her. He did not dare to share even his boat with so dangerous a fellow-passenger. “That’s my advice,” he said, getting up from his chair.
“Are you going?”
“Well;—yes; I don’t know what else I can do for you.”
“You are so unkind!” He shrugged his shoulders, just touched her hand, and left the room without saying another word to her.
LXIV
Lizzie’s Last Scheme
Lizzie, when she was left alone, was very angry with the Corsair—in truth, more sincerely angry than she had ever been with any of her lovers, or, perhaps, with any human being. Sincere, true, burning wrath was not the fault to which she was most exposed. She could snap and snarl, and hate, and say severe things; she could quarrel, and fight, and be malicious;—but to be full of real wrath was uncommon with her. Now she was angry. She had been civil, more than civil, to Lord George. She had opened her house to him, and her heart. She had told him her great secret. She had implored his protection. She had thrown herself into his arms. And now he had rejected her. That he should have been rough to her was only in accordance with the poetical attributes which she had attributed to him. But his roughness should have been streaked with tenderness. He should not have left her roughly. In the whole interview he had not said a loving word to her. He had given her advice—which might be good or bad—but he had given it as to one whom he despised. He had spoken to her throughout the interview exactly as he might have spoken to Sir Griffin Tewett. She could not analyse her feelings thoroughly, but she felt that because of what had passed between them, by reason of his knowledge of her secret, he had robbed her of all that observance which was due to her as a woman and a lady. She had been roughly used before—by people of inferior rank who had seen through her ways. Andrew Gowran had insulted her. Patience Crabstick had argued with her. Benjamin, the employer of thieves, had been familiar with her. But hitherto, in what she was pleased to call her own set,
