"Julia," said Lady Eustace, "will you have the kindness to see that my aunt is shown to her carriage. I cannot stand her violence, and I will go up-stairs." So saying she made her way very gracefully into the back drawing-room, whence she could escape to her bed-room.
But her aunt fired a last shot at her. "Unless you do as you're bid, Lizzie, you'll find yourself in prison as sure as eggs!" Then, when her niece was beyond hearing, she turned to Miss Macnulty. "I suppose you've heard about these diamonds, Macnulty?"
"I know she's got them, Lady Linlithgow."
"She has no more right to them than you have. I suppose you're afraid to tell her so, lest she should turn you out;—but it's well she should know it. I've done my duty. Never mind about the servant. I'll find my way out of the house." Nevertheless the bell was rung, and the countess was shown to her carriage with proper consideration.
The two ladies went to the opera, and it was not till after their return, and just as they were going to bed, that anything further was said about either the necklace or the visit. Miss Macnulty would not begin the subject, and Lizzie purposely postponed it. But not for a moment had it been off Lady Eustace's mind. She did not care much for music, though she professed to do so,—and thought that she did. But on this night, had she at other times been a slave to St. Cecilia, she would have been free from that thraldom. The old woman's threats had gone into her very heart's blood. Theft, and prison, and juries, and judges had been thrown at her head so violently that she was almost stunned. Could it really be the case that they would prosecute her for stealing? She was Lady Eustace, and who but Lady Eustace should have these diamonds or be allowed to wear them? Nobody could say that Sir Florian had not given them to her. It could not, surely, be brought against her as an actual crime that she had not answered Mr. Camperdown's letters? And yet she was not sure. Her ideas about law and judicial proceedings were very vague. Of what was wrong and what was right she had a distinct notion. She knew well enough that she was endeavouring to steal the Eustace diamonds; but she did not in the least know what power there might be in the law to prevent, or to punish her for the intended theft. She knew well that the thing was not really her own; but there were, as she thought, so many points in her favour, that she felt it to be a cruelty that any one should grudge her the plunder. Was not she the only Lady Eustace living? As to these threats from Mr. Camperdown and Lady Linlithgow, she felt certain they would be used against her whether they were true or false. She would break her heart should she abandon her prey and afterwards find that Mr. Camperdown would have been wholly powerless against her had she held on to it. But then who would tell her the truth? She was sharp enough to understand, or at any rate suspicious enough to believe, that Mr. Mopus would be actuated by no other desire in the matter than that of running up a bill against her. "My dear," she said to Miss Macnulty, as they went up-stairs after the opera, "come into my room a moment. You heard all that my aunt said?"
"I could not help hearing. You told me to stay there, and the door was ajar."
"I wanted you to hear. Of course what she said was the greatest nonsense in the world."
"I don't know."
"When she talked about my being taken to prison for not answering a lawyer's letter, that must be nonsense?"
"I suppose that was."