“What if it was? I don’t know why you should ask me any question like that about myself.”
“Is he not my cousin?”
“Yes—he is your cousin. Why don’t you ask him? You see him every day, I suppose?”
“Nearly every day.”
“Why do you send for me, then?”
“It is so hard to tell you, Lucy. I have sent to you in good faith, and in love. I could have gone to you—only for the old vulture, who would not have let us had a word in peace. I do see him—constantly. And I love him dearly.”
“That is nothing to me,” said Lucy. Anybody hearing them, and not knowing them, would have said that Lucy’s manner was harsh in the extreme.
“He has told me everything.” Lizzie, when she said this, paused, looking at her victim. “He has told me things which he could not mention to you. It was only yesterday—the day before yesterday—that he was speaking to me of his debts. I offered to place all that I have at his disposal, so as to free him, but he would not take my money.”
“Of course he would not.”
“Not my money alone. Then he told me that he was engaged to you. He had never told me before, but yet I knew it. It all came out then. Lucy, though he is engaged to you, it is me that he loves.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Lucy.
“You can’t make me angry, Lucy, because my heart bleeds for you.”
“Nonsense! trash! I don’t want your heart to bleed. I don’t believe you’ve got a heart. You’ve got money; I know that.”
“And he has got none. If I did not love him, why should I wish to give him all that I have? Is not that disinterested?”
“No. You are always thinking of yourself. You couldn’t be disinterested.”
“And of whom are you thinking? Are you doing the best for him—a man in his position, without money, ambitious, sure to succeed if want of money does not stop him—in wishing him to marry a girl with nothing? Cannot I do more for him than you can?”
“I could work for him on my knees, I love him so truly!”
“Would that do him any service? He cannot marry you. Does he ever see you? Does he write to you as though you were to be his wife? Do you not know that it is all over?—that it must be over? It is impossible that he should marry you. But if you will give him back his word, he shall be my husband, and shall have all that I possess. Now, let us see who loves him best!”
“I do!” said Lucy.
“How will you show it?”
“There is no need that I should show it. He knows it. The only one in the world to whom I wish it to be known, knows it already well enough. Did you send for me for this?”
“Yes;—for this.”
“It is for him to tell me the tidings;—not for you. You are nothing to me;—nothing. And what you say to me now is all for yourself—not for him. But it is true that he does not see me. It is true that he does not write to me. You may tell him from me—for I cannot write to him myself—that he may do whatever is best for him. But if you tell him that I do not love him better than all the world, you will lie to him. And if you say that he loves you better than he does me, that also will be a lie. I know his heart.”
“But Lucy—”
“I will hear no more. He can do as he pleases. If money be more to him than love and honesty, let him marry you. I shall never trouble him; he may be sure of that. As for you, Lizzie, I hope that we may never meet again.”
She would not get into the Eustace-Carbuncle carriage, which was waiting for her at the door, but walked back to Bruton Street. She did not doubt but that it was all over with her now. That Lizzie Eustace was an inveterate liar, she knew well; but she did believe that the liar had on this occasion been speaking truth. Lady Fawn was not a liar, and Lady Fawn had told her the same. And, had she wanted more evidence, did not her lover’s conduct give it? “It is because I am poor,” she said to herself—“for I know well that he loves me!”
LXV
Tribute
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
